The middle east, china, russia and other topics at an event hosted by Johns Hopkins school of advanced international studies. He also responded to the news of President Trumps decision to withdraw forces from syria. This is one hour and ten minutes. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is eliot cohen. Im the dean of sais and its my pleasure to welcome you to the 2019 lecture on International Affairs with general David Petraeus. The four i introduce general petraeus i i want to share a little bit more about the lecture series at sais. The series is named after charles ross off, steps in 1990 by his wife dorothy as a treatment to his life and he was on the interest in International Affairs. Charles was a hopkins alumnus and was a dedicated supporter of the universities efforts to improve our understanding of the world. That of course is the sais mission. Were particularly glad today that we have with us charles daughter kerry and his son and his wife to be with us for this event and want to express my gratitude to you into your family for making it possible. So David Petraeus is one of those people who actually really literally does not need a whole lot of introduction. Hes still going to get one that is not going to be very long. Hes currently and has been since 2013 affiliated with kkr, currently the chairman of the kkr Global Institute which supports kkr is investment committees, Portfolio Companies and partners with analysis of geopolitical and macroeconomic trends. But, of course, what he is most known for is a career of 37 Years Service to this country and the United States army, to include a command in the surge in iraq, central and then capping it all service at the Central Intelligence agency as its director. It is an extraordinary career not just of service but of Successful Service to the United States. What were going to be doing tonight since general petraeus and i met when he was a major and i was an assistant professor a long time ago, is not do this as a lecture but rather to do as a conversation. So i have a number of questions that i would like to put to him. Well have a conversation back and forth, and then were going to open it up to you all. Im going to say from the outset that when the time comes for the q a, i will be selecting people who either our students or look so much like students that i cant tell them apart. So theyre going to get first preference. With no further ado its great pleasure to have you again at sais, dave. Please join me. [applause] thanks very much. I want to add my thanks to the rostov family as well. I think ive done this once before but it is a real pleasure to do it with eliot this time being dean eliot cohen, and i congratulate you on that. Well talk about strategic leadership later on. I think youve been an extraordinary leader provide a different Strategic Programs and others here over the years but you are now truly the strategic leader for sais and i think the school is an extraordinarily good hands. It is a pleasure to be back here as well. We go way, way back, back to the days of the other heroes who are here over the years. And again to those who are fortunate enough to be where you are in the seats as a student or a former student, i congratulate you in particular. Thank you, dave, and thank you for your friendship and your mentorship over the years and also for engagement with this institution. Youve repeatedly visited us. He became came and spoke to us shortly after return from command from your first commit and iraq with the 101st. You even went on the staff ride with us to gettysburg. That was before that. That was when i stewing and fellowship in the of the war college and i subsequently then did a 2. 2 haiti in lieu of the fellowship so there will be a recurring theme here especially for the military fellows and military students here, which is the enormous importance of what might be turned out other intellectual comfort zone experiences. Graduate school was very much that kind of experience for me. I treasure it to this day and again those who are in uniform are actually from other institutions where this might not be the norm, where soulmate even told you as he told me that i was committing professional suicide by going to graduate school and still of the ranger regiment. I seem to avoid that but its really wonderful and i encourage you to make the very most of it. Of course we always think just how much more successful you event if you gotten your phd here rather than at stanford. [laughing] im in princeton, sorry. I get confused. Let me ask you a question. I wont make any jokes about, you know, a whole series of princeton jokes. Thank god for harvard, not anybody can get into princeton but anyway. Work with me here. Oh, boy. Youre the chairman of the kkr Global Institute, and i was thinking about your career. There you were director of the Central Intelligence agency, pretty to all of her secrets and, of course, you work on the joint staff and you have been a theater Combatant Commander and so many other things. It only struck me when i get in the government over the years have different information flows are and that if only one sees the world from that perspective than from the outside. What are the kinds of things you think you understand better now as a result of being where you are, and maybe should explain what then you were there with all the resource use, at your disposal . First of all, the kkr Global Institute which i treated says geopolitical risk for kkr and, frankly, thats becoming ever more important. It used to be certain a side like him with the fat when we were in countries we had never invested before and is much more important these days. Reintegrate the macroeconomic analysis of the 2027482001 mountain pacific we have as well and environmental social government issues analysis, which is also, anyone of these actually can be a dealbreaker and we use what we gather in that to supplement what the team is doing, the Financial Analysis of it. We have an Innovation Team that looks at how it might be disrupted by innovations down the road. All of that comes together, within essentially have three client groups, one is investment committees, america, asia, europe and even a bunch of others now, real estate energy, nextgeneration technology, goes on and on. Keep in mind we get somewhere between 205 210 billiondollar under management round the world. World. We own about one of the companies. Maybe more significant i was made a partner also about five years ago, which is wonderful. If youre ever on a partner offered a partnership with kkr, take it. Its really quite a wonderful thing. And in second group of clients, if you will, our Portfolio Companies again, we own about 100 of these outright and we have minor stakes or less than the joysticks another 5070 Something Like that. Often are grappling with issues. We did a 2 billion investment in Health Medications in former yugoslavia. Every single country was problematic and every secret case, when my people be on the board, pulled in as needed. Multiple trips to these countries and would go in with the u. S. Ambassador because its a u. S. Company although its all around the world and then the European Bank of reconstruction feldman on the other hand, and we would go in and sit with government officials and explain to them that their Competition Council it was anticompetition in the grip of a Political Party and not allowing our great firm to do what we were planning to do to improve Internet Access and a variety of other telecoms for them. This is not unique. Weve done this all around the world, and that is been very important. Companies that want to global we can help them in many cases. In a number of cases where we have not invested before, key examples would be mexico, the balkans, ethiopia, philippines and handful of others. They were headline risks as we called it and so the team and i will go in and evaluated and come back and we have to give thumbs up before you were going to do an investment. Ive actually vetoed a couple investments, one was really attractive in particular back in the old middle east area responsibility, and there was some repetition of risk that i wont go into that was just too much, despite how attractive it was financially. So that is been great fun. Then our investor groups, particularly our Strategic Investors as a calling, these are the ones that are very substantial. They all want to understand the world in which were all investing together so we do a lot of activity with them. Almost similar to what were doing here but again lets say they are bored or their stakeholder or whatever it may be, you know, its wonderful frankly to get paid to do what you love to do. Look, i love government but what everyone was international stimulation. I still i travel a great deal, boots on the ground still matter, about 25 countries a year. Some of the many more than one time. So does the world look different on this adage point than it did from within the government . Its a different perspective. Dont get me wrong were still concerned about security issues. Were still concerned about National Security issues, geopolitical risk again and all the rest of this. All of which it is as a director of the cia with less of the nationals could focus and more of a financial investment. Did you ever run across things or insights or views we say gosh, i wish id known that when i was at cia or for that matter centcom . Sure. Again it has to do with indepth knowledge of a particular country or even industry or development. Obviously the world has turned over considerable amount in the seven years since i was in, as well. Well talk about some of the most significant developments, but again i think geopolitics has become vastly more important than it was even one of us government. Dont get me wrong, there were plenty of challenges but in particular will come back to this theme again and again, the rise of china and the fact china is not just our biggest geopolitical competitor. Its also wasnt till the tariffs are biggest trading partner. Well come back more and more on this because thats the most important relationship in world by far, bar none, and it is aa think as previous secretary of defense says all china all the time and a lot of different respects. One of the biggest investors of our type in china, in asia writ large. Will get to china but first breaking news, President Trump has announced we are withdrawing American Forces from syria, particularly i believe from the news report i saw said that someone military posts along the syrianturkish border had already been american posts, had only been evacuated. This is part of the world you know very well indeed. Served quite a long time. What am i supposed to think . The press still have my email and phone number, and by reaction, frankly, was to share the concerns that even voiced by Senate Leader mcconnell and Lindsey Graham in a variety of different ways. For me as ambassador to u. N. Nikki haley and among a bunch of others. I say that with the caveat because its still not precise and clear to me what it is that was the policy objectives are, nor specifically what the policy is. In other words, how deep is turkey going to be allowed to go . How big a buffer is this works what do they intend to do with that buffer . If they are going to make millions of refugees in in camps right now, which is what speedy a say certainly speeded it appears in addition to having some kind of zone and separation between the syrian kurds and the turkish kurds, that could be quite disruptive. But again without the real specifics, and im not aware of those being reported at this time, i have significant reservations about that. By the way, the dod has put at a press release i was literally reading on the way here which did not offer further clarification actually. It seemed to be warning the turks as the president did in one of his tweets along the way as well. Again, without some real specificity on that particular policy initiative, its very hard to evaluate what the implications are. And among the implications in addition to again displacing some people and replacing them with others, could be that our partners, the syrian kurds who have fought and died in large numbers to defeat the Islamic State and eliminate the caliphate, noting that there are probably 3000, usually ass use Islamic State forces that are still in around iraq and syria area, but those kurds may take their eyes off the remnants of isis which are trying to regroup, trying to establish an insurgency and carry out terrorist activities. And also may take their eye off or have to take their eye off of these very large camps of family members at the Islamic State fighters. So the one most significant is the one that is up to 70,000 family members, mostly wise and then their children of Islamic State fighters. That is a huge challenge. This is a big conundrum, because countries are not most of these came to syria from another country, and the countries perhaps understandably but not hopefully a pretty reluctant to take them back, if indeed they will at all. So again theres a lot of Unfinished Business here. One of the lessons i think we have learned, ill go into the five big lessons we shouldve learned from the last 18 years of work, but one of them is you dont take your eye off this fall. Ball. If you do that, defeat implies they cannot account for mission without being reconstituted. As we saw an iraqi to take your eye off alqaeda and in iraq, e next thing you know they reconstitute themselves as isis and drifted into syria and gained a lot of power and they are backed. It seems to be there are two different kinds of arguments, even in jest during the afternoon, as people argued ts out about why this is bad idea. One is a once you have laid out, which is you take your eye off the ball isis comes back. Its destabilized in the right of ways. Theres also something about a commitment of the United States. Thats another factor. I do want to dry out a little bit on that, because you mentioned earlier on talking about kkr facing Reputational Risk. How important, consideration should be americas Reputational Risk . The reason why i ask that is i think its fair to say that the president , one of the things that makes this president unusual is he doesnt really think that Reputational Risk, and the since weve just been using it, matter a a whole hecf a lot. That is to say, reputation for fidelity, for certain kind of commitment to allies, to following through, for staying the course, although sorts of things. If you were to make the case for reputation, how would you make it . Its by no means unique to this administration. We can go back to the Previous Administration. We had a red line that turned out not to be a red line. That is quite serious and the Prime Minister of singapore for telling you, that doesnt just have ramifications in middle east and europe. That is significant ramifications out here. We have more than occasionally had more expansive rhetoric that it turned out we were willing to actually see through to conclusion. Asha alassad must go. Thats a pretty substantial statement made by the power of the world, and again we did not make him go. We didnt even have a safe zone, much less other initiatives. We perhaps could have been firmer with russian at various times, perhaps so with china on some issues as well. While certainly seeking to coordinate with him, to collaborate to have a mutually beneficial relationship. By the way i would go back with respect to the administration that you and i served together, the one you and i served in together, where there were opportunities. Now theres a lot of revisionist history of the relationship and those sort of early postwto days for china, and opportunities that might have sent messages very early on about subsidies not being allowed and emotional property transfer, and all these other issues. Again, there was a shrinking from that. But this is a narrower and Reputational Risk would like to hear a few more words about. That is, the risk that you incur when you walk away from an ally like the kurds. The argument, well theyre pretty, pretty imperfect and the connections to the pkk and so on, what if i understood you correctly, you think theres something almost in the nature of moral commitment that we have to them, is that correct . Look, i dont think its just today. I think we have that to some of the partners weve been working with, particularly in the post9 11 period. Youve got to be this is home of realist thinking after all. This is paul nitze, your first dean, was any . He was one of the cofounders. He was somewhat a different character. But again we also you walk through this and that. And again i think known for a realistic appraisal of International Relations and security situations. So i think youve got to be fairly clear eyed about that and you have to be very careful with your rhetoric. Thats really the issue at heart here, that if you do make a public commitment and you are the superpower, you need to follow through with that commitment, unless theres some explanation about why the context has changed and all the rest of this. Be measured in what you do. We have repeatedly in the post9 11 period, i would argue with every one of the three post9 11 administrations, had considerably more expensive rhetoric that it turned out we were willing to actually put up. Let me use that transition to the question of lessons, if you think there are any that we should take away from what some people call the forever wars, iraq, afghanistan, and the broader and more diffuse conflict against alqaeda and analogous movements. You indicated you thought there were five big takeaways, so why dont you tell us what they are . Id be happy to go into details and some of specifics of afghanistan, iraq that catastrophically bad decisions we made in the first few months and iraq and that kind of thing if we want to get into that later. I think what a strategic leader has to do, and you are the one on the stage at this point in time, not me come here to get the big it is right. Again strategically there are four task and the first task is unique to a strategic leader. Theres usually only one in relation coceos, cofounders t kkr does. That task is to get the big ideas right. If you dont get the big ideas right Everything Else is built on a shaky intellectual foundation. The fact is and is often dubbed the surge in iraq that mattered most wasnt the surge of forces, the 30,000 initial forces. It was the surge of ideas, which the big ideas were 180 degrees different from what we were doing prior to the surge. This is a fairly transformative moment of change leadership as they say to go from consolidating on a big basis to living with the people, because thats the only way you could secure them. To hand it off to the iraqis to take it back, to releasing detainees, to stop and releasing them and take it the extremist out and have a Rehabilitation Program and a variety of other initiatives, sort of tolerating reconciliation to embracing it wholeheartedly, and then more determinedly just very, very huge increase in the intensity of the operations to get the irreconcilable. These are the big ideas, so you got to get the big ideas right. You have to communicate them, oversee the supplementation and have a formal mechanism we sit down to determine how do we find them and do it again and again and again. I can give lots of examples. Im going to come back at the end speedy but to talk about i think the big ideas that have emerged from the past 18 years of war continuous war are as follows. Number one is that islamist extremists will exploit and governed spaces in the muslim world. Its not a question of if. Its a question of when and how that is the number two is yet to do something about it. This is not a a problem you can study until it goes away. You can engage in paralysis by analysis. It doesnt go away, and moreover, las vegas rules do not apply in these areas. What happens there doesnt stay there. They came to spew violence, instability, extremism, and a tsunami of refugees, not just in neighboring countries but as in the case of syria or libya were some of the others, although it into western europe causing the greatest populist challenges since the end of the cold war. You have to do something. Number three is the u. S. Generally has to lead but we want to have a bakers coalition as we can get and that coalition should include muslim countries for whom this is an existential struggle, not something less than that. But the u. S. Generally has to lead. If you look at the extraordinary predominant that we have in the systems that have become the coin of the realm in this fight, in particular the drones, now its exclusively the reaper, used to be predators and vapors which take about one at 50 people in total to keep one eye in the sky 24 hours a day seven days a week, the unblinking eye in vain to evaluate the intelligence and integrated, disseminated, make sense of and so forth. We have probably six or seven times as many of those lines, each, this is in orbit, as all of our possible allies and partners put together. Dont get me wrong, dont confuse these with the tens of thousands of drones that are out there, everything from once you launch like this to some bigger ones. These are the ones that really will be mad at the ones that a theater commander personally allocates to subordinate units. And the same is done here in the pentagon for the whole world. Then the industrialstrength ability for intelligence, the enormous predominance of precision nations and the aircraft and so forth. And keep in mind by the hour drones were willing to launch stuff from the in addition to all the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets that weakening off of them, and very few over allies are to do that or he can do it with the ability that we have. Number four is you have to acknowledge a real paradox, and that is that you cannot counter terrorists like alqaeda and Islamic State with just counterterrorist force operations. In other words, you cant just drone strike or Delta Force Raid you after the problem. That will be necessary, and if thats all you can do that is what you do but realized all you can do is the rough district within. You have to have a comprehensive approach, a comprehensive Civil Military campaign such as the one that ambassador ryan clark and i were privileged to oversee during the surge in iraq. But, and this is a massive but, but without us doing all of the fighting on the front lines, the restoration of basic services, the reconciliation, political reconciliation, the reestablishment of rule of law and local institutions and markets in schools and health clinics, and repair of damage and Everything Else. Its crucial that we not do that because of lesson number five, and that is that this fight is not the fight of a a decade, mh less the few years. It is the fight of a generation or more, and, therefore, you have to have a sustained commitment. But we know in a democracy you can only sustain a commitment if it is sustainable in terms of blood and treasure, the expenditure of those. Theres no way we could sustain what we did in iraq where you at 165,000 americans and tens of thousands of coalition, plus by the way 200,000 or so contractors probably, or 150,000 u. S. And coalition in afghanistan when i was privileged to command there. Those were not sustainable. We didnt have a lot of the assets we been able to bring to bear now, but we figured out how to do this. I think this is a hugely significant breakthrough that we are now able to carry out these kinds of campaigns. In syria well have about 2000 or 2500 troops actually hundred troops actually on the ground. Theres a lot of other stuff above them supporting them from various other locations. Iraq is below 6000, it may be below 5000. Afghanistan again, 13, 14,000 americans, several thousand more coalition totaling maybe 20,0000 overall. That is a hugely reduced number. Therefore, hugely reduced expenditure in blood and in treasure. That is i think absolutely crucial, in particular because we do have to acknowledge that the single Biggest Development geostrategically is again the rise of china, and we do need to do the rebalanced to asia that the Previous Administration initiated, and this administration has continued. Im going to get to china auto want to comment on one point that you and i discussed a bit earlier. For those of you dont know me, it will be a little surprising that i would stand up for the president , but what i was going to say to you was, doesnt the president have, in his unique way, a kind of common sense point . Weve been fighting the stupid wars for 18 years. They are far away. We smashed isis on the ground. You know, the war in afghanistan looks like its going on forever. Other people have a much bigger stake in this than we do. Not only the locals but the europeans. Why should we waste our blood and treasure . The point i would make is when you strip aside the rhetoric which doesnt appeal to some people, it is a kind of man on the street, person in the street judgment about the conduct of war. One of the things ive been hoping to draw it out on his whats the difference between that kind of judgment, and the relevance of common sense to it, i think you would agree, and what you have to offer indeed with the school of with has to offer, which is a kind of educated judgment which can take you to a different place. I was when if you could ruminate a bit on that, the difference between that . First of all, i sort of offered my five lessons. If you sort of except those, a policy follows up and it would indicate that you, as ryan crocker used to say, you can leave the movie theater, but the movie continues to roll. We found that out the hard way of course after we left, pull all our combat forces out of iraq, only to find out that several years later we had 55000 troops on the ground. There was an ime that we remove them because we couldnt get a parliamentary approved status of forces agreement, and yet at the end of that administration with 5500 troops on the ground without a parliamentary approval status of forces agreement. On the one who argues that had we left to do 500 troops that would have prevented Prime Minister modi of iraq from doing what he did, which is basically undo all we achieved during the search together and then sustain for a good three and half years afterward which was not driving the pilot down by 90 and keeping them there was bringing the fabric of society back together, which he tore apart, ripped apart by going after the senior sunni leaders to me being the leader of the shia majority government of the country. So i think, and it should also add, look, nobody understands the frustration of forever wars more than the individual who commanded both of them at their peak and spent nearly seven of my last ten years in uniform diploid. And who wrote more letters of windows to americas mothers and fathers anybody else. So please anybody else in the theater. So understandably would all love to do nationbuilding at home as the Previous Administration, president argued. The problem is that theres these five lessons that i think are the result, id like to think, of considered judgment and analysis have become at least for me the big ideas when you approach this particular situation and this particular threat here i tend to think they are somewhat undeniable. Every time we have denied them actually, we have found out, to our disappointment or horror, that we have to go back in and keep our eye on these guys. You worry about the build of people like you, or me, to persuade our fellow citizens of that kind of thing . Sure, yeah. At the moment looks as though the other can argue it is muche successful and persuasive. How should we, particularly those of us insights, im not talking about particular argument about iraq and afghanistan but more broadly. One of the think this seems to me we take away from this era of populism is the David Petraeus of this world and the eliot cohen of his will that happen to good effective at persuading our fellow citizens to think in more or less the ways that we would like them to your. Again, i think for understandable reasons its very easy to argue for some of the people would like to see. Again, this is also not again to, thats why we cut taxes. What a wonderful idea. There is this little matter of a skull deficit that as result of recent tax cuts and also the removal of budget caps as result of the 3. 5 trillion of additional deficit spending over a ten year period, and thats additional. Thats over what we already were planning to run. But again thats a very appealing idea. And again, so how do you do if you try to be as persuasive as you can. I certainly tried to do that. I mean, one of my pluses and certainly one of my minuses in the eyes of some folks in this fair city was that i was the most successful general officer certainly during the post9 11 period. Two labeled as a celebrity general later on, and that has its downside on people tell you theres room inside the beltway for only one superstar, and its not going to be you. The onus is on us to try to persuade people. Again, ive often said the big ideas actually are not applauded by those to whom he unveiled the big ideas or with whom you share them, it is sometimes the case it is the big ideas. In this case id like to think the big ideas are reasonably persuasive. Ive actually written about these. I have gone public and these. This is one of the challenges. In an age of populism, in an age of how many characters are in a tweet, im not a twitter or i must confess i people who semistuff on twitter. You have to be able to compete with those who are really good at that. But how do you counter some of the challenges of the social media age . Which we are not only beginning to see now when it comes to the fake videos that are going to be produced that getting ever more believable, the deep fakes and so forth, and they are ever more refined and again realistic. Its going to take a huge effort and ill tell you that when were doing the surge in iraq, we put in an enormous effort into our munication strategy. The big idea and we had a whole series of big ideas, we had three pages of counterinsurgency guides which i will personally and edited every month or two and i just hit the send key during that 19 and a half month period. But the first with the truth. Its pretty profound. You want to beat the bad guys to the headlines can , the first ad keep in mind that the bad guys have cnns baghdad bureaus speed dialed in their cell phone. As you are fighting a way out of sadr city are dealt or Something Like that, theyll already diving in and saying the americans had just committed an atrocity. We are fighting to get the full motion video pulled down to race it over to them or send it to them to show that no, these guys shot first. We can show you this. Let us explain to you. So dont give a headlight to we at least have a chance to talk to you because you want that headline. You dont want to be the one underneath it that says americans commit an atrocity you want it to be americans conduct operations to cease shia militia leader or what have you. And then with the troops, you cannot, if you lie to the press and will come back to bite you in the backside. We had individuals that found it very difficult to go up to the podium and explain what took place the day, and instead would start out by giving happy talk. I said the 160 people were killed in these baghdad, these huge, their version of a Shopping Mall or center was just a huge street a milelong as you will recall, back streets. There were three suicide bombs one day and get our spokesman, who were stars, when out and started by talking about the resumption of the Soccer League and the Amusement Park was coming back. We have these terrible expenses that i said no, you go out, you say wet horrible day today in baghdad, 160 innocent civilians were killed in horrendous, horrific suicide bombings. Heres what we understand to have taken place. Heres what we have set in with our iraq counterparts to initiate to try to mitigate the risk for that in the future, this isnt more details to follow. So again you have to really get serious about that. We had people watching the televisions fulltime. People watching print media, and that this version of social media which are still just developing, 24 7, every one of them so you could immediately back. Has to be a wartime operation. We had a very substantial uk Public Relations firm working for us. We made our own videos and so forth. Yet these are realistic. These were not happiness in the midst of what was going on. I just couldnt ask you to my question because i know lots of people who want ask you think are the first question is about china and you mentioned china, china, china. Obviously china is both a competitor to the United States and a critical partner, but also a global force. I begun talk about the rival a china rather than the rice the china because its already here. What i would like to ask is to put on your analytic hat rather than to policy had here so do not talk about what you think american policy should be, but how do you see this pattern of relationships playing out over the next decade or so . What do you think the relationship is likely to look like, rather than what you think the training should be doing about it . As as a former economics professor, obviously i should begin this by saying, it depends. Then you say on the one hand,. On the one hand, no, it does depend. It depends on what chinese leaders are willing to do. It depends what american leaders are going to be willing to do. It depends on the strategic relationship between our two countries. I think we desperately need to strategic dialogue, the kind that a Henry Kissinger would be carrying out. But its difficult if people are changing jobs very frequently. It does depend very, very much for all of these different dynamics. I should note, i have to Say Something i think about what our Foreign Policy should be because ive written about this as well as minor at the Belfer Center at harvard. Its titled coherence, or coherence and company thickness, and american Foreign Policy imperative, and it argues what we should have for china is a very coherent approach, very clear that thats the number one priority. Everything else therefore is not the main effort. They are all supporting efforts. It should be comprehensive, not just all of all possible tools, not just military, trade, economic, diplomatic, social, you name it, all of that, but all of that from all our possible partners and allies as well. It would contend, i think you would conclude that you would not pull out of the Transpacific Partnership as an example. Some shortcomings sure, and i got it, the other candidates ran against it as well after she promoted for four years as secretary of state but im quite confident that wouldve been finessed to get to. That was more important to geostrategic with an economically. You would certainly point to your nato partners that they are not spending 1. 5 in one case, much less 2 of gdp on defense, even though one of them is running a fiscal surplus. You have to live with that because you need all these nato allies with you. You need all of your asiapacific allies even more so than if you want to try to make the indopacific a reality and not just in unit for an old headquarters. Again, you have to take steps to truly operationalize that. You what all the g7 countries with you so again be careful how you again interact with the g7 meeting. Will this be a more conflictual relationship in the future . Idea that truly does depend again of both sides. There are legitimate issues very clearly on the u. S. Side, and have accumulated over time. Either way let me say up front, i very much want to see this be a Mutual Benefit relationship. But in recent years in particular i think there have been more concerns. My hope is again there can be sung some reestablishment of some degree of trust and confidence so that at least it doesnt turn into an all out cold war. We already, i i would contend,n the early stages of a tech cold war. I think that is actually happening and it think that probably is going to follow through. I think theres just too many realities there. Look, there is not a World Wide Web anymore. Theres 1. 3 billion people who are behind the great firewall of china. It would do or these. Russia will adopt the Chinese Technology and so forth, and again so there will be countries that will not take it and take hours or western. There will be countries that will take it, and there will be then probably a fracturing of the World Wide Web further, and at the i. T. Space, if you will, as well. And then there will be something between some of that will try to, keeping again, the challenges particularly for those countries that are heavily dependent on trade, their biggest trading partner in many cases is china, and in some cases their biggest secret apartment is the United States. So theyre in a difficult situation. So again it really does depend on decisions that are made and on relationships that are pursued at what is quite a fragile time. Im not certain that were going to resolve all of the issues that are listed in the u. S. Trade representatives list, which is quite a comprehensive list of issues. There is a bigger issue here though as well, and i think theres maybe one of the biggest of the big ideas about the world today is that we have the return of history. So history it turns out didnt actually in with Francis Fukuyama brilliant essay 1989 in a in a little journal called the National Interest in which it only 10,000 subscribers at the time, two of them are on the stage stage here with you. It was a brilliant essay, wonderfully argued, is lighting was history is a competition, intellectual between contending system is that this u. S. Led western democratically elected governments, liberal democracy, if you will, capitalist economics, freemarket economics competing with the soviet union and its system and partners in the warsaw pact. But in particular the soviet communist party and the command economy of the soviet union at the time. He predicted quite rightly that this was going to collapse of its own weight to it did quite certain that i think most people assessed would be the case. He also i think has confessed more recently that history is back, and its back with a vengeance. This one over here, this is a one party system that is maple china to achieve results economically that no country has ever remotely approach, at least in a large economy in a 40 year period. Its what theyve accomplished. Thats the assessment of governance and they have a hypercompetitive freemarket economy, albeit with an ecosystem that includes substantial Stateowned Enterprises in which investment that is once again being placed. But thats up against the u. S. Led liberal democracies of the world, many of which are experiencing a variety of populism, all the major democracies that we contend with the exception perhaps of japan, and you can argue india, but certainly the u. S. , the uk, germany, france, spain, italy and on, all of these begin experiencing very considerable elements of populism. Im going to ask one last question and then open it up. I want to get back to your idea strategic leadership, and it seems to me your point about that kind of leadership as the postman of the Council Leadership leadership that are out there, is that begins with the big ideas. I think retrospectively, the big ideas look Pretty Simple and pretty straightforward, okay . Once somebody has them. Right. Thats exactly what i wanted to get at. And you cant expect anything useful will be conducted in the parliament or schools. You have to do that but again we were doing that. Heres the question. This is the way that history is distorted the ideas which are in one sense that you can articulate these in a way that a 19 yearold can understand. Why is it so hard and those do actually come up with ideas in retrospect say that is straightforward. Why is that hard quick. Because there is bureaucratic inertia and momentum of those who are invested in what they are doing. We asked kodak which had thousands of digital photography patents why they didnt change the big ideas when they did. They didnt actually. So by the way its not just enough to get those big ideas right, you have to firmly sit down and force yourself to ask how we resign the big ideas. So as a commander in iraq or afghanistan for that matter all of those Lessons Learned special ops and all these different teams all over the battlefield that was just one source of the intellectual challenge with a variety of other activities that we call action and forcing mechanisms. You dont get hit on the head under newtons apple with a fully formed tree normally it is the kernel of the big idea and you have to shape it. That process is generally best done in an inclusive way, welcoming way, you want everybody to feel they are contributing inside the tent rather than outside the tent. And generally, it should be something that continues. With that guidance i had in iraq and afghanistan, it is dynamic. Not a revolutionary change but i would capture a new way to phrase something one of the big ideas was walk. Get out of the vehicle take off your sunglasses. One said promote initiative and they explained we want leaders who feel that in the absence of guidance or words they figure out what they should have done and execute aggressively. This is what you want. How do you create that kind of culture . And in the field manual counterinsurgency i wrote the side that learns the fastest typically prevails. You have to force that and drive it as a strategic leader. You would like this to a plea appear that this is very easy and a light hand on the reins if i fell asleep for two days nobody would notice. But the truth is you are still driving a campaign. With that surge in iraq we had to have results in six months or the actual possibility there could be a cloture vote in the senate to circumscribe our resources or authorities. You had to drive this but you are conveying that. So the big idea hindsight appear terrific but they dont when you go through them. I will give you the example of netflix one of the great strategic leaders of the world jeff bezos or allie bob ids that the way that they have gone about it. So netflix sat down in the beginning and blockbuster foolishly did not buy them. You could buy us at 50 million they turn them down so the first big idea is we will put movies in the hands of customers without brickandmortar input blockbuster out of business thats the big idea they oversee the execution and by the way i have talked to Reed Hastings he has mechanisms that are very similar to this now two years later now blockbuster is going out of business. Where is the last one . Actually there are two. [laughter] one in oregon it refuses to let it die and then there is one in alaska somewhere as well. So they say is going great its going out of business so what do we do now . The new big idea broadband speeds are faster now they can download content they communicate and oversee terrific. Everybody else does that so now . Lets develop our own content, breaking bad all the other great series that you binge watch except for elliott. [laughter] so then they say this is going fantastically well. What do we do now because everybody produces content so they said lets go produce movie studios we will produce blockbuster movies in the first had brad pitt playing Stan Mcchrystal and it was horrible. [laughter] for number one stan has a sense of humor that has to be the most forgetful role he ever had but they were always doing these crazy things that people imagine military do but they really dont. I was devastated that he didnt want to play me. [laughter] but i had the Great Australian actor from gladiator. Anyway, so you get the idea on strategic leadership. It appears obvious in hindsight but looking at the feed industrial man all of course you say its common sense and why are we doing what we are doing . Why are we risking the impact of this escalation in the wake of the mosque bombing and then we just continue to withdraw from the communities and head off to the iraqis and continue to posture to go home. Its the process of big ideas. Heres the thing. I will ask people to wait for the microphone. Say you are in your affiliation and ask a question. Second year studies thank you for being with us tonight asking about Africa East Africa has become an arena of competition of great powers with turkey and i feel the parallels taking place in the middle east over the last few decades how do you think the us should respond to this competition and how we can do better than the middle east. We should engage more. I am heartened to see the International Development finance corporation i think will be called d s c those resources double from 30 million at 60 billion. That is heartening but then obviously they should coordinate with the other major donors of japan and eu and others so you increase the effect. Once again its a great comprehensive approach with this is not the main effort which would be china but this is a competition with china there as well as an area of Great Power Competition once again there are islamist extremist and a variety of other challenges whether inadequate governanc governance, corruption, rule of law, so all of that is for the kind of approach it doesnt mean you have to be in conflict with china all the time. That is the big take away to see we are nuclear age as well. He is a huge mentor of mine up at the Kennedy School but all of those cases are pre nuclear age and the stakes are quite a bit different to put it mildly. That 90 percent of success is showing up and we really havent been showing up at these locations. Its very frustrating i will acknowledge. There were moments as the director we literally had to shut down a program because of the lack of integrity on the part of the Host Nation Forces but you have to work through that we did do the biggest investment four years ago with the biggest rose grower in the entire world in ethiopia people thought i lost my mind growing roses in africa but that was 9000 youth ethiopians online so that can do substantial investments over there but again you have to have a strong stomach for some of those challenges you will encounter. General although i have that relationship with china in the middle east for a long time but what about the basic science competition between china and iraq. From what i saw america students no different from Chinese Students that having this type of basic science is extremely important with innovation with technology in the future so what are your ideas how you can call cultivate the smartest scientist and attract the hot one the smartest minds around the world. I have to interrupt the professor that just won the nobel prize. We are still generating a few. [laughter] [applause] actually thats a very good question i am fairly serious about stem topics. We do have quite a bit of investing in a variety of different technological areas of the venture capitalist as well have startups and one is already over 1 billion and happens to be in ai so i am focused on this. And then to make them believe this is something they would want to do obviously there are issues of some Public Schools to address that we are leaving 40 percent of america students behind to some degree and we need to continue to provide student visas for the worlds best and brightest and then work hard to keep them here. And then lift the limit of h one b visa which is a smart people visa. Im a smart lawn a full believer of comprehensive reform of unskilled workers of hospitality, constructio hospitality, construction, agrie more h one b visa because the technical firms in the silica and hills they all depend on those and to make it easy to keep the people here but i will argue somebody is coming to a Stem Technology program getting a phd there should be a green card stapled to the acceptance letter especially hopkins or mi mit. You have to have a very comprehensive approach but if we havent taken those steps that we have outlined with the other approach to that. We will take two more questions i want to learn about the short medium term in venezuela specifically with the prospects and the risk. After this we will take one more question. Certainly it would be wise to prepare for the moment when investment is possible again in venezuela. For one reason right now is sanctions but it is a colossally bad investment to put it mildly with serious corruption and illegal activity by the rulers of the country. I fear what will have to happen in venezuela is that the country will have to collapse. I just do not see a path to a outcome when you have a regime where this is the autocratic regime that is not just Saddam Hussein and his sons and a handful of others of level one and two members but this is an entire regime, military, every part of society that you know far better than i unfortunately much of it is highly illegal which are serious issues with illegal narcotics trafficking in any other activity for a regime that is slowly strangled on sanctions. And again it is highly unlikely you can fix the power you just cannot fly into haiti to tell the strongman to leave. And then everybody is okay you can keep them around. It is vastly more than all of the others put together some i fear is it actually has to collapse and then we need to be ready very very quickly to have the humanitarian assistance to require other forms of assistance as well beyond economic. Anybody who has the guts to wear a red pocket square. So what is your strategy as a Society Member my question is that recently the roundtable put out a statement that said the purpose of a corporation is to maximize profit you dedicated your life to public good now as a corporation so now there are some grievances with corporations which are doing business with the Chinese Communist party. If you agree with that statement now in the private sector how do you navigate that maximization of profit for shareholders quick. Thats a fairly complex issue we have some good debates about that we have long believed up front to do well while doing good obviously you have to get good returns are people not give you their money to manage. This is millions of people money from all over the world entrusted to us we see this as a very sacred obligation. This is a Retirement Service and the endowments are another source. So this is a serious responsibility and you have to get great returns but good means and to violate the social norm and what have you. We believe this for two reasons and we think thats the right thing to do and also from a business perspective. I understand why they took place. I was inside the special Ops Communications network at the time in bosnia on 9 11. I also think it doesnt work that well but even if you dismiss those i would argue to pay for whatever you get will vastly outweigh that. So if you dont do good eventually you will not do well actually we are running into that its well over 1 billion and still claiming that the intent is to do good. But keep in mind there are responsibilities to a variety of different stakeholders. We have had lots. When you get into this it starts to get quite serious should we sell semi automatic weapons what about highcapacity magazines . There are lots of these different areas that have to be weighed against the various stakeholders who are all affected by this. Maybe make less profit or those that would reward a company that is the right thing so they do better. This will play out there is still a lot of debate about what this actually means and how you operationalize this and i can tell you that is already ongoing on a firm that owns 100 Large Companies around the world as many of those that you know and use on a regular basis. I believe in what we do but if you believe in the concept not just money but expertise and assistance and insight to help something grow and then we can return more to our investors then they provided to us. There is lots of debates with how you operationalize that big idea which has a lot of merit but youve got to be careful because again there are a variety of diverse possibilities you have not just to shareholders and investors but to a number of other stakeholders as well. Once again you have to have a comprehensive approach. But i will end by saying thank you so much to my favorite dean and someone i hope would be at some point in time its wonderful to see him in that capacity. And also a way to join in leading the program as well i look forward to other initiatives as the strategic leader of this great institution. Thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] President Trump is an overwhelming communicator and speaks loudly and constantly. He launched into a tirade of statements, not so much questions, but statements which i later learned was his way of informing me of the facts he wished me to adopt. So glad you are here. This will be great. Things will be great did you hear everybody is happy about this im sure everybody is happy about it. Are they happy about this at the fbi building is in this great and terrific . He did and with a question i didnt know how to respond to those assertions and said i heard you are part of that resistance and call me off guar guard. I said im not sure i understand what you mean. I heard you are part of the group that did not like jim comey and what he did in these cases and that they rejected to the way they work these cases. Is that right . And i said no sir. That is not right for i worked very closely with jim comey and we worked in those cases together i was a part of most of those decisions and i agreed with most of them. People have disagreements with the way we handle our decisions but i was a part of that team perk i dont thank you are correct. So thats what we do. Then i realized that was my loyalty test. The idea is they wanted to go out and have fun and demonstrate you could do this but they wanted to have to light their own campfires not just a blanket on the ground they had all these different amenities like a refrigerated car powered by edison batteries to have fresh dairy and chefs making gourmet meals and then they would dress and freshly ironed clothes. But america was so grateful to them it didnt matter. The point out one the point is we are traveling. You can do it also. Canadians head to the polls to vote their federal election the Prime Minister trudeau in the liberal party are tied with the conservative party and leaders of several Political Parties took part in a twohour debate in quebec this was their only englishlanguage debate ahead of the federal election. Canadians will decide on parliament hl