My career when i was a fourstar admirals initiating up the us Southern Command, peterma in charge of all activities south of the United States as the commander of us Pacific Command a very traditionalos position for senior admiral my boss wonderful by secretary gates called me up to say forget about the pacific we will send you to nato. Was the first and as far the only admirable to be a lien supreme allied commander in nato. Is just an accident of timing and fate and secretary gates decision. From a nato perspective i was the accidental admiral who became the supreme allied commander. Host the naming was an accident as well . Someone. So lets go way back i grew up in the marine corps family my father fought in korea and vietnam. I grew up in the environment going to Quantico High School and went on to the Naval Academy thinking it would be a marine Corps Officer after my first year the navy sends everybody out on a cruise so you go out on a ship i went out on a beautiful cruise around sanan diego and i walked on the bridge of the ship in the evening late in the day and i got up there and the sun was setting. I looked out on all that ocean and light like st. Paul on the road to damascus i just wanted to be a sailor at that point and on the ship so i went home and told my dad and mom. They were hoping it would be a marine. But they got over it. Years later my dad said i think that came out okay. Host but you almost left the navy after five years . I did. I graduated from annapolis and went to see for five years three on a destroyer out of san diego and then went to florida where im coming to you from today my homeland my hometown. And at the end of the fiveyear period the Aircraft Carrier was my second ship. At the end of those five years i was a very capable mariner i can launch a missile but not an idea to save my life so the navy stepped in to make me an offer that i couldnt refuse and he ended up going to the Fletcher School of law at Tufts University which is a graduate school in international t relations. And that is where i began to shift the focus of my career from exclusively focusing on Maritime Operations and being a mariner which is a part of my life and career but also to be involved in the world of ideas that came out of fletcher in the early eighties. Host as Supreme Commander of nato 2009 through 2013, you say in the accidental admiral, 250,000 words mainly to teach yourself, not others. Indeed. I felt a big part of my job as supreme allied commander at nato is to take ideas and move them to this enormous command at the time there were 28 nations in nato. Today there are 30. 3million people, men and women almostst all active volunteers. 28000 military aircraft 800 oceangoing ships. You get the idea. A very big command. I felt it was part of my job with communication of the key ideas and the strategies. I spent a lot of time writing for my own benefit. I learn as i write and for the benefit. One of those is about the chateau what is that . That is the official residence of the supreme allied commander of nato. It is a beautiful french chateau on 26 acres. It is maintained by the belgian government it is located in belgium just south of brussels is not only a lovely place to live but a Strategic Communication platform where the supreme allied commander will host a dinner for all heads of state of government of the Nato Alliance the senior military officers s, host partners and allies and friends one of the most memorable dinners my wife lauren and i held there was the Russian Federation and the Supreme Commander of the russian military. He and i both are 5foot 5 inches tall and i used to joke to secretary gates he would call me after i would meet with him and say how did the meeting go . I would say sir it was great we saw everything i to i which we did. Add are towering 5foot 5inch height. But it is an example we need not to engage not only with those that are already on our team but to succeed in creating Real Security weth have to engage with those we disagree and this is a good example of that and all that occurred in the chateau. From that book you write throughout my time as the nato strategic commander, was often asked what kept me awake at night my simple one word answer to what really kept me awake may surprise you and that is convergence. Indeed. I am particularly concerned in those years, it was ten years ago, i was concerned about liby libya, the balkans, piracy, cybersecurity what increasingly concerned me was the increasing convergence between groups amenable to the United States and terrorist organizations if you will with the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons these were two streams of threats it was like ghostbusters and never let those costs. So i worry a lot in those years ofo al qaeda finding its way and continuing to be concerned about that not only that but the Islamic State and boko haram and ways to obtain weapons of mass destruction. And it has added to that concern because these groups more and more adept of cybercapability for infrastructure and medical establishment. And that context of ten years ago of extremist organizations todayne im equally concerned of cybertools. Host admiral stavridis can you be isolated as the Supreme Commander of nato . Of course. Every day in a job like that and that is true for any leader of any sizable organization your staff wants to take control and dictate the tempo of the organization of your day. To control that information coming in and going out. So that creates order where otherwise chaos might exist but as a commander i would argue you have to fight against that isolation and against the dying of the light. You have to fight on to get out of that cocoon sources of information coming in to you to find ways to communicate simply and truly to your organization and the demands that you have in your schedule and where your priorities are. Faceac it. Your greatest asset as a supreme allied commander and the ceo of exxon if you are the leader of a Large Organization your most precious asset is your time and how you allocate and prioritize has to be reflected in your tim time. One thing i would do was the practical points we made, we can often think our priorities are xyz a very good exercise every six months is to get out a calendar and look back at the previous six months and say tose yourself am i prioritizing my time with my priorities of xyz . I would find occasionally i would be prioritizing my time a bnc despite that my stated priorities were xyz. It is crucial for your own view of what your time should be and how that should be spent all of that means getting out of that isolation bubble. Host was that easier to do to get out of that bubble on the ship wandering around on your own . It was. I wrote a book about that years ago when i was in my thirties called destroyer captain. Its a short book simply a series of excerpts from the journals that i kept the first time i took command the captain of uss perry the new missile destroyer and i wanted desperately to connect with my crew and on a ship like that is longer than enough about feel with a considerable distance with a crew of 350 depending on the configuration of the small universe unto itself as a captain you can decide how you want to use e your time will you sit on your chair on the bridge to survey the view are locked in your cabin doing paperwork . That is a real option or do you get out on foot patrol and understand all of that is part of being a good captain its part of any Good Organization all of that contributes to mission accomplished. What is army class mean . For every type of ship destroyers or cruisers the first ship of that type is called the class. That is the class reader and the destroyer of that particular type built exactly the same as the first is called the class destroyer so for example i commanded whole number 52. My wife lawyer one laura is a proud sponsor she got the champagne bottle to christen the ship and is the sponsor of the 113 and so every one of those destroyers is called a destroyer built along the lines so its pretty wonderful to have a ship named after you but its a particular honor to be the leadership in the class to be stowed upon admiral burke the greatest of the destroyer officers the most impactful surface line for six years a naval figure so all the ships in that class are destroyers. So mine was named barry after john barry who is not terribly well known hes a revolutionary war and navy captain a contemporary of John Paul Jones and was a superb naval officer. Those who serve are proud of that just like my wife is proud to be a sponsor of 113 from the metal of honor at pearl harbor and to serve with any of those destroyers we are proud i and to serve in that burke class destroyer. All of your books contain leadership lessons. One of those or a combination of lessons are bold economy versus organizational fidelity. You have to have both. Another way to put this is the traditions and culture of his or her organization which can collide with innovation. A good leader knows you will hear me say this again over two hours wife is not an on and off switch to simply accept tradition or to innovate constantly that is a false choice. Instead of thinking it has on and off switch and needs to be a dial like a dimmer in yourdi dining room that you would just in a leader has to find that balance between respect with the organization against the innovation and that is necessary to keep that organization moving forward that is a key to leadership. And the practical example from Winston Churchill the equivalent of the secretary of the navy of the British Royal navy in the early part of the 2h century constantly wanting to innovate and drive change and therefore constantly with the admiral to say we cant do that. Its against the traditions of the navy and churchill exploded and said tradition . I will give you the tradition. In other words, there is time when we have to move forward. Luckily for churchill he finally found someone in early h century the british admiral. Host admiral your most recent book is called failing true north. What is true north . True north is the adherence to what we brought the conceive of as moral and ethical behavior. In my mind. You are trustworthy, honest. You care about others. You are kind to others. You have empathy to put yourself in the shoes of the other. Not just friends and family but of your opponents and those with whom you disagree you believe in things like democracy, freedom of speech , freedom of education, gender equality, race and equality. We have to keep those values imperfectly but they are the right values and when taken together that value set plus the personal qualities i mentioned a moment ago, that is what it means to fail true north. Host you write quote motivated by a growing sense were witnessing the slow death of character. We are. Asked to say in the book that i think we over share publicly and underperform thinking about character as an internal debate. Heres a point about failing true north. Is not a book about leadership the character. Leadership is a big door that influences hours. And that door swings for good or evil. Think of fdr one of our great president s certainly in the top five or top two or three with washington and lincoln. That door of leadership with the Great Depression to the Second World War that was enormous. On the other hand think of a leader like pol pot from cambodia, ruthless, thug, but he was an effective leader and could mobilize a society. It lead to an awful genocide and the killing fields of cambodia. Leadership is the door but the big door swinging on small hinges. That small hinge is human heart so where your door of leadership will swing i want to write a book that talks about character. Frankly we are awash in books leadership. He will see dozens of them in every bookstore. We are underway in books about character and the ideath to sail true north so i chose to write about that topic and what you actually know about i decided to write about character in the context of admirals in the sea and i chose ted admirals from history from 2500 years ago of a to the late 20th century. And then dragged kicking and screaming into the computer age those are stories of character hence the title of the book, book, that is the idea of the book. Host we will get into some of those admirals in a minute. But to go back to your quote about character, you said we over share and the Attention Span has shortened. Are those comments directed at anyone in particular . [laughter] no. They are directed at all of us but i think we can all point to public figures today who would benefit from doing a little more reading and thinking and in turn all contemplation and to take the example into the twitter sphere in the world of twitter recently twitter expanded from a maximum of 140 characters up at 270 and created a firestorm among twitter users who said now it will make them too long. Think about that for a minute. Thats 270 letters. You want to have a diet consisting of 50 shots of espresso before lunch thats not a healthyat diet. In short punchy. And newspaper with the daily cycle of news. And with the economist one of the great magazines of the world. And no ego involved and it is resolutely journalistic and detached from the daily news cycle read some books both nonfiction but ild would argue great novels. And like the physical fitness diet to have a pretty broadbased diet. Host what does the back of your Business Card say . It is blank. Perhaps i should think about putting something clever back there. One quotation i like a lot i would think about the greatest and on the tombstone which the quote i will put it is the same on his gravestone. I want nothing. I fear nothing. I am free. In our lives we need to do what we think its right without curry favor or fear and we need that perspective so to put something on the back of my Business Card there is a quotation from a modern greek writer. Host on the bookshelf you write Thomas Jefferson quotation is on the back of your Business Card. Front. Ally its on the but that one is a very famous quotation by her second president and jefferson said i cannot live withouto books. On the front of my Business Card is that on the bottom. Host we will play a video for 2015 honesty stand program. And in your book sailing true north lets see if you can recognize the voice. Whenn i command with a greater sense ofti satisfaction. Was sailors and marines and to make miracles happen. You can only be delighted as a leader to work through Mission Success and then to congratulate the individuals. Host admiral stavridis did you recognize the voice . How dare you give it away without asking. That is my very good friend admiral howard who is the first africanamerican to be a four star woman admiral in the United States navy. She is a little dynamo maybe 5foot tall is like being around her because and actually taller than shesh is. In that clip thoughtful and kind and i first met her believe it or not as a midshipman at the navaly academy. Went back to see a play it was midsummer nights dream and part of the cast. And really is quite a remarkable person. Just retired in charge of all naval forces and someone i have enormous respect for and part of the profile. Host in sailing true north you write love of country despite the menopause on manifest flaws it is a quality of service to others and for true patriots. Since you raised the idea of service thank you for your service. Thank you for your 37 years in the u. S. Navy. But heres my point. There so many ways to serve this country. One. Inly the military is how about firefighters and technicians and police and doctors and nurses on the front lines to fight covid . What about teachers . Elementary School Teacher in rural south carolina. As well as working in the School District teachers start their at 32000 a year teaching impact classrooms. Do you think she is serving the country . I do. I think we need to talk and think a lot more about service that is inextricably tied to character. I believe we should think all of the military that we just mentioned. What about our diplomats, peace corps volunteers. Cia officers. So many ways to serve the country how about media . And as the supreme allied commander with bulletproof attire and steel helmets and to see a journalist they are and Richard Engel is standing there with probably small not bulletproof vest and i am armed with a 45 caliber weapon that i will never use because im surrounded by special forces who will use there is very capably of push comes to shove. All those people serve the country in a wide variety of ways. And you say i appreciate that. Go find a teacher and thinking for her service in a firefighter. To find a diplomat thank you for working in a tough embassy overseas. There are a lot of ways to serve this country. Michelle howard is one form of that kind of service and there are many others. Host other leadership lessons that come through in your a book something larger than yourself. You have to be. I heard that phrase for the first time walking in the door of us Naval Academy 1972. Known as one. 2 million years ago. The class of 2024 and because of covid they are coming over several days actually to create social distancing and then imbued with a desire to take on a huge challenge to be a part of the class that walks through the door to be part of surveying the country to be a part of something bigger than justrs yourself. I saw that in the class of 2024 they got their heads shaved and that is yet another marvelous class. But certainly the air force academy in coloradospri springs and Merchant Marine Academy in new york all of these schools are places where young men and women go to choose to be part of something larger than themselves. That is the first step of journey of leadership and character. Host thank you for joining us on indepth on book tv. This month our guest is retired admiral andir author admiral stavridis serving in the u. S. Navy 1976 to 2013 including a stint as commander of us Southern Command and from 20,922,013 tina Fletcher School at tufts after that currently works for nbc news and an operating executive at the carlyle group. Author of several books. And editor at command of see the accidental admiral which about. Ed and the bookshelf came out in 2017 history of geopolitics in the worlds oceans sailing true new on true document last year. And a new novel coming out in 2021 entitled 2034 the novel of the next world war. If you have questions or comments. We talked about some of your books but one book they didnt mention was a propose book what is that about . [laughter] right about now in 2016 i was vetted for Vice President by candidate hillary clinton. John podesta was her Campaign Manager former chief of staff at the white if house. John podesta said would you be willing to be better . I saidilw sure. Im open to the ideaf of service. By the way i am a registeredlw independent in addition to be vetted for Vice President was invited to trump tower after the election to talk to the president elect trumped about a cabinet position so that is a bipartisan figure in many ways so i said to the chief of staff and Campaign Manager john podesta are on on podesta and secretary clinton called me that it is quite an experience to be vetted for Vice President. Providing the campaign with every article youve ever written every tv appearance of ever made social networks, networks, school transcripts, dental records medical records every tax return going back 20 years. It is a big, long process and also its done with a lot of secrecy because it is something the campaign wanted to keep secret as long as i could and eventually a broken the New York Times but for well over a month or sixix weeks it was done behind thene scenes. With this unbelievable highly sensitive b information with a bunch of email addresses very close advisor of mine and with the intelligence world. That actually sending on this information not to the Clinton Campaign but somehow to russian intelligence. We found that pretty impossible that makes a pretty interesting novel of a tactless individual who was chosen to be vetted for Vice President he starts to send all this information, he thinks to the campaign except unbeknownst to him he is actually sending it on an intelligence organization. So that is the First Quarter of the book. And that is revealed than he is to figure out how do i get out of this . It was meant to be tongueincheek like a novel like thank you for smoking. But that we sent that off to our agents and publishers and editors and resoundingly rejected because everybody said it so implausible a campaign would be tracked likeke that. Four years later im not so sure. But that is the theory of the book and that is what is happening right now with Vice President biden he is in the process of picking a woman as he has said to be his candidate. It is apropos of the moment. Still available if anybody is watching this. Host what you think about military folks serving in elected office . 100 percent in favor. A really good example president Dwight D Eisenhower not only a superb general brilliant organizers supreme allied commander of was nato and president of columbia and then on university and went on to be a highly successful twoterm president of the United States. I encourage people to read a crusade in europe the autobiographical the treatment and to make those occasional mistakes in life and politics but overall a superb may 20th century president. During the period of time there was danger in a cold war and someone who manage that said challenges brilliantly and a great book about that is evan Thomas Eisenhower as a per bridge player to bluff the geopolitical opponents so there is one example. But there is plenty of precedent in elected office at senators and representatives at the level of eisenhower and i will close on another who kind of got away and that is colon powell way is i chose him to run for elected office. He was a fine secretary of state as well as chairman of joint chiefs of staff and a remarkable individual in so many ways. There is room for Superb Service for senior military. Host what our callers have to say beginning in caliente a california you are on with admiral stavridis. Thank you for taking my call. First how impressed i am with the use of your word kindness. So how far in advance does the military plan was system strategy . On a related note and the increasing and tension with china there were two carrier groups. Host i you former navy . I am not. As a hot question on both counts, first of all planning it isge the bastion to be good at mid range planning is in a one or two year frame in between three and five and seven year frame longrange planning between five and ten years with the outlier plans that go even further than that. Military planning is tactical if god for bid we got into a war with china we have plans over that war. And kim jungun woke up in a bad mood and decided to attack the south. And additionally we have the longerrange plans. And with that nadir. In the 20th century between world war i and world war ii in the navy in n particular with Detailed Planning for a Needle Campaign that might occur if we ended up in japan. Having said all of that i hothink eisenhower said none survives First Contact with the enemy. The enemy gets a vote. And beautifully orchestrated plan to be part of how that plan unfolds. And general patton said violently executed is better than a perfect plan that you never get around to putting on the table. Butec the design for perfect is the enemy of really good. Learn to put your pencil down and put your plan in place be prepared to execute it will come twist and turns. And it is a process. For the young men and women at Service Academy again in midcareer points it is legendary bastion of Detailed Planning and war colleges for the Lieutenant Colonel zora commanders navy the captains they study planning again at each level to develop more details. We are good at that it doesnt mean they are perfect but there is a detailed plan for that contingencyor to encounter globally. Another question of the moment is what can we do to avoid stumbling into another cold war with china or god for bed a shooting war with t china . That is the most important question that our government should be thinking about internationally right now. That relationshipp between United States and china. We have significant disagreements with china and cyberintrusion the chinese claim the entire South China Sea a huge body of water it claims the South China Sea is territorial of china because its full of natural gas and hydrocarbons below the service and fisheries and because 40 percent of the worlds trade moves throughwe their we are concerned about human rights with china how they treat the one. 5 million leaders who are muslim descendents who are pushed into encampments that are concentration camps or human rights in hong kong of another 30 years of two systems. We have a lot of disagreements with china. So how do we approach china . Number one the first part of your question is we need a plan i can assure you the military has plans for military engagement. But we dont have a national plan. So my view doctor Henry Kissinger the greatest living expert on china to surround him with the most talented people who understand china economically in the world of finance and culture and historype and military operations have that brain trust to create a National Strategy so lets get a plan. Number two philosophically it needs the following approach confront where we must but cooperate wherever we can so avoid that tension between the United States and the soviet union for decades a blended to speed approach and says we will confront on intellectual property theft and confront on your excessive claims of territoriality on the South China Sea. We will confront you on elections which i fear may happenct this year such as 2016. Confront where we must, but letsre find cooperation where we can we can cooperate on the environment, with a shared desire to address the environment more responsibly. I hope the trumpte administration will return. We can cooperate with china. We can cooperate in the arctic where china has a significant desire to move through the seas as the i. C. E. Melts on the north and diplomacy us and china working together to address covid19 and the emerging markets around the world. Its the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective and also a pragmatic the right thing forhi our economy so the markets can stay open and the raw material can flow. We can cooperate with disaster relief. The United States has hospital ships and deploys them to the latin america and hospital shipe must confront where we must and cooperate where we can. And finally, we need to be respectful of china. There history and culture and the chinese admiral in the early 14 hundreds was conducting throughout the South China Sea and indian ocean and through the coast and to africa we need to understander the culture and to acquiesce in claims in the entire South China Sea to understand them. If we will do those first two steps that is my prescription. Host x call for a admiral stavridis comes from detroit. Caller hello. Thank you for taking my call. Have a comment and a quick question. I am and navy vet i served primarily online air force bases i was part of Naval Security group. Something about the service am a huge proponent how do we reinvigorate the conversation of personal service to our country where the narrative is me me me or darker parts of the country . How we turn the conversation into americans serving america as a whole. Thank you for taking my call. What a deeply meaningful question. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Talking to nab that and thank you for your work with veterans the entire organization previously headed up by Bob Mcdonnell the west point graduate, you are all serving your country in part of the culture of service. So how can we effectively move the nation . Services an enormous part. Three quick ideas its a much larger conversation but those who are serving need to talk to others in our communities and to be active role models and be engaged and post what they are doing on Instagram Linkedin and twitter. Talk about service. All of us. Not everybody will write a book but every bit counts. Our National Life is an enormous conversation to zig and zag and a messy conversation. Thats the beauty of america and one of our challenges it isnt just one set of voices. So number one, all of us involved in service, lets talk about it personally, social networks that we can imagine and the localhe newspaper to take a question you just asked me and frame and send it to the detroit newspaper. Number two, to all of us as a centrist and registered independent, vote for candidates who you think will treasure the idea of service at every level. Look at a candidates background and say to yourself as a voter will your candidate be somebody who personifies service and embrace the idea and support those going into service . Believe me iol understand how politically loaded a comment like that is today. And im talking to you if you wake up in the morning watching morning joe on msnbc and by the end of the y night and watching to see what Rachel Maddow says. You wake up in the morning with fox and friends and by the end of the night listening to sean hannity. Im talking to everybody across the political spectrum if we get 100 candidates that believe in service because at the end of the d day services nonpartisan it is bipartisan and nonpartisan. As voters we are looking for candidates who involvement on embody the qualities to continue a life of service at veterans affairs. This is a longer conversation but the third idea is to a incentivize service. Have a system the military has the ability to go into the militaryl to collect the g. I. Bill to pay her education later on. We need comparable programs for ents and peace corps volunteers and teachers and Rural Communities or underserved communities. We need to incentivize service. A good way is through education or other benefits including level of federal support. We have had back culture for decades. Its a good idea to expand and its money well spent. So very quick ideas i hope youll be my shipmate and continue to work on all aspects of this great challenge for america and 21st century in this challenging moment. Is our head bal. Lets take this next call from albert in arkansas. Yes, sir. This is a time very few understand countries and how people are in other countries aaround the world. The poverty status or education status. I ended up joining the peace corps when i was a young man and there is nothing like first hand knowledge about who people honor, hoare,how they feel aboud also poverty. Dont look at people if you lived in Central America for eight or nine years as being poor so i would like for you to talk a little bit more about the service if you can as far as peace corps. I appreciate your service. Its amazing how balanced you are. Also im interested in reading for high school students. I hope you were involved in some of the. Thank you, sir. Guest i will return thehe compliment and say thank you for your service in the peace corps. I agree with you with all my heart. Let me say a couple specific comments. As peter said a little while ago when i w finished up my 37 year career in the navy, my long spent youth in the navy i started to think about what could i do next with my life and i started to ask mentors and everybody had plans. Some people said you need to go to the Defense Industry and work on hightechnology projects. Others said to focus on the emergence of tech. Others said the you could go and be in Operations Director for a big Nongovernmental Organization like the big cross. Good ideas. If i weighed them out and asked of all the people h i had the privilege to work for him to be around and that is again, secretary of defenseer robert gates. Instead of immediately giving me a plan they said the navy for 37 years would give you a clue to what you might want to do next and i thought about it. It was a great question i hadnt really thought of it in that context what had kept me in the navy. Theres a lot i liked about the navy, i like the sharp looking uniforms and going to see, i liked traveling around the world. I liked all of these things. The thing i loved was mentoring young people and helping guide the gorgeous trajectory of their lives. So i said that secretary gates and he said you should go into education. Those were the most powerful words for me. Everyone can remember he was the director of the cia and the secretary of defense both bush and obama administrations. What did he do in the middle, he was the texas debate the president of texas amn. He mentor to me and helped me become the dean of the school of law and diplomacy. That is when they really came in contact with c peace corps becae the largest single core background. I learned a lot and they made so many bright young men and women whod taken two years out of busy lives and devoted them to effectively mentor others. Thats what you do in the peace corps typically. You teach others to do a variety of things from literacy to agricultural education. Its a marvelous way to give to the world but at the same time you represent your country in the best possible way to in a way young people of other nations look up to and respect. You are putting your time where your idealism is. Not everybody does that so i have enormous respect and i will close by saying this one of our close Family Friends one of their young daughters, somebody young by my standards in their 20s, came back after here is in the peace corps and we were at the wedding of her brother just a few months ago and i had the chance to talk with her in depth about her experiences in a east africa. It was a wonderful way to serve the country in the completely commended. We ought to incentivize it and provide the same awards to a man or woman who goes into the marine corps. Host before we get to the next caller, ive been pronouncing youre last name for years and im hearing something differentt from you. Guest i think it sounds like you are pronouncing it. Believe me ive been called everything you can imagine. I think youve got it just right. Host jerry in brooklyn please go ahead with your question or comment. Caller that was a perfect Career Change for you. I cant think of a better person with the balance and your thought process to work with young people. I also worked in nonprofits for people withor disabilities, battered women, disabled, homeless, incarcerated. Its not about making money. I never made a lot of money in my life but its about giving back and helping those that are less fortunate. I think that is a great move youve made and i know other young people will be thankful down the road. I just want to say thank you for the Ivy League Education youve picked up. I was watching you on cspan sailing and as soon as i heard you argue about character and leadership as they enable are you like to quote people. You mentioned michelle howard, africanamerican young lady that came from a challenging background that took down the f somalia pirates to begin the fourth star admiral stricanamerican woman from a person you said that had immense character. There is one thing i want to ask before i go and in your threestep plan with china i didnt hear you mention anything about the media. You have a picture hanging up in your office you said of the blowup in havana and 1988 causing the spanishamerican war. A lot of the media with their yellow journalism ike Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer that claimed the spanish were responsible for putting it up i think you said they were actually terrorists back then host can you get to the question quickly . Guest caller yes im sorry. Later on when the navy salvage the ship they discovered it was not h host i apologize we are going to leave it there there is a lo want for the admiral to respond to. Guest i will finish the story because it isor a very god one. The uss battleship blows up in havana harbor, immediately the journalists spin the story of a mind based on the exterior ship that blew it up, terrorists by the standards we launched this war. When the navy salvage did 50 years later we discovered it blew up because of an internal explosion, probably a powder magazine. I can give you could keep the picture to remind me of that incident because there are two powerful lessons there. The first one iss pretty obvious where ever you are, however high and mighty, recognize your ship could g left from under your fet any moment and have a plan b. In the world changed forever in an instant. That is a good thing to hang onto. The second thing is the point you were making that before a u. Take precipitous action and lose your temper and in this case start a war or choose somebody out or fire somebody make sure you have all the facts right because so many times that additional set of facts, kind of like iraq when thee united stats invaded iraq we knew Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. That was false intelligence as it turned out. Nobody lied, that the intelligence communitys got it terribly wrong and ended up going to war. How different the world would become a better obebetter or wot it would be if they hadnt gone into iraq as another example. Thats why i keep a picture of the battleship name on the wall inf my office wherever i am and theres one here just outside the back door. The other photo i keep that i hope you can see his home a shelf of myself and senator mccain. Thats me and senator john mccain. Senator mccain made many mistakes in his life personal and political that he was a he hero. When he went to congress to represent the state of arizona, he did what he thoughtt was ri right. In addition to stories its important to have people to respect and you can look at their story and i think what youll find for most people is the stories like overcoming a challenge for being a prisoner of war helped to keep the character and people like that who didnt sail through their lives is in important element. Host we are going to play but who is this game again, heres a video clip of someone you mentioned in the sailing true north. Host every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed ridiculous at the time particularly in light of the fact we were aspiring to be battle hardened steels that the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over. If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day baseball sense of pride in it will encourage you to do another task and another and by the end ofy the day with one tak completed will have trained into many. It will also reinforce the fact the Little Things in life matter. If you cant do the Little Things right, you will never peoplyoull neverpeople to do ts right. Host guest many of you have seen his book, make your bed that i think its from the is fe gave at the university of texas which was also entitled to make your bed. I think the reason i included him in my book not because he is a sealed or right because those are true but i include. Included him in my book because he is very resilient. And enormous part of character is how you perform in adversity. Nearly all men canai stand veadversity. If you test a mans character, give him power and i think that he kind of personifies that for me. Hes resilient and handles being in a powerful position extremely well. In particular he is told with medical challenges in ways i cannot comprehend. Ive been lucky in my life to be chhealthy. Ive never broken a bone, never spent the night in the hospital. Im in my 60s. Ive been very lucky. Though the craven, not so much. Twoo examples, he was in a terrible parachuting accident. It didnt open a partially opened and somehow they survived that but ended up hospitalized for a significant period of time. As a result he wasnt part of the first wave on terrorism despite the fact he trained his whole life as a sealed. He came back from that injury and went on to a great career and ended up with a form of leukemia, very debilitating that creates a cycles of taking chemicals and having it reversed the period of time and then back again. Hes built with stoically, quietly. He doesnt hide the fact, but he deals with it. I remember talking to him once when we were both fourstar admirals on the bus driving back for dinner at the white house with president obama. He said its just another machine i deal with everyday. Hes got that kind of resilience i have a lot of i respect for so thats why i concluded him in sailing true north. L host if your is here from n orlando. Caller thank you for taking my call and thank you to cspan. Whatatou a treat it is for me to talk to you. I start every day on washington journal but ive got to confess every nowr, and then really do value the opinion. If this is redundant, im sorry. I have some ideas of my own i want to respond to them breaking the treaty over hong kong and would like to get your comments. I dont seeee anything wrong wih telling china there there is no student visa us this fall at any american universities. I dont see anything wrong with taking some of the Chinese Government owned companies off the New York Stock Exchange and i would love for the World Trade Organization to classify not as a developing country but as a developed country. I will take my comments off the air. R. Peter, we love you on cspan2 but missed you on washington journal. Thank you and have a good weekend. Guest thank you. A couple of points, we did cover some of this i will just build on it and pick up on your point. I think all the things you mentioned are examples of reasonable responses that ought to be considered as part of a larger strategic framework and i think that what we need here isnt just the credentials lets put this one back in. We need a Strategic Plan and the threee things you mentioned are worth considering. In addition to those i mentioned earlier, a very important element is taiwan. Unlike hong kong which is part of chinas sovereign territory, the World Community acquiesces that with the cabbie got for the 50 years following 1997 hong kong would enjoy status as the socalled one nation, two systems. In other words, they would have a distinct system of jurisprudence and laws and regulations dealing with the rest of etc. , etc. China is violating that is now so in addition to the things i mentioned earlier, i would add where are we looking at a the relationship with taiwan because theres leverage here. They resolutely determined they want to pull taiwan into the sovereign work. They already believe it is part of it. The community doesnt agree with that and weve had a strategic relationship with taiwan. We could build on that by increasing weapons sales by conducting more having the Aircraft Carriers pulled into the east court. These are all places we could be conducted andse i think it would be deeply annoying to china but also give pausee to them. I think we need a spectrum of responses, some military, some diplomatic with taiwan, some that are importantly economically based. Education as you suggest to track diplomacy. All of that needs to be part of the approach and it needs to be done coherently as a part of a holistic plan. I w want to make an important point here by the way. We had hundreds of thousands of billions of Chinese Americans who lived here in the United States. Some had more recently. One of them is my soninlaw. Jini is a firstgeneration namerican. The first of the family born here and his parents immigrated here as students. His mother became a successful dentist and his father became a successful inventor. He is on the front lines of coronavirus and a result of the immigration the United States has enjoyed from china over the years. We need to be careful that as we seek to end our relationship in more appropriate ways, i completely agree with your comment about china and the World Trade Organization we need to be careful they do not break the relationship and end up in a very severe cold war neither of which are impossible and we recognize there are deep cultural diplomatic and personal relationships that are at play including some i regard as a hero, my soninlaw is a physician. Host and you have a new novel coming out next year called 2034, a novel of the next world war. This is the text message we received for you. I am a 33 year active duty officer. Why arent more americans not as concerned with american statues and washington and other great u. S. Historical figures being taken down . History is under attack by the b left wing. It simply is. Fox . Guest i disagree with most of what i just heard althoughosa portion so let me try to un package that. First of all, i do not believe any statue anywhere ever should be torn down by a mob. That is not appropriate. We ought to have a National Conversation and we are beginning to about which statues of what individuals and from what period of history ought to be read examined. For my money, as i look at the spectrum i would say for example the confederate generals and admirals who took up arms against the United States of america therefore were by definition traitors not only to their oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States but also took up arms against their nation in defense of the system that included slavery. I dont think those should have statues put up about them. And i think where there are such statues, and there are many of them around the country, i think that its time to have a commission probably come to the conclusion as i c have two put them in a museum and start the history of the civil war. Its a cautionary tale for our times. So i think confederate generals and admirals shouldnt be glorified with statues in public places. On the other hand, we have our founding fathers. And i am well aware of the interests that exist my fellow veteran points out systems of individuals that have gone after a statue for example of general president grant. I am very aware of the movement to take down statues of Thomas Jefferson who was a slave owner for example. I understand that emotion but i think that is a different set of circumstances than the ones i mentioned a moment ago. The world should make these decisions based on a collective conversation. My vote would be take down the statues, take down the monuments of confederate admirals and generals. Washington, jefferson, grant. Not perfect, slave owners but in the Broad Spectrum of their life and times their contributions or striking and statues of the monuments need to remain on display, perhaps indicating that in addition to all that is done making the Point Jefferson held slaves. That is a valid historical point that doesnt rise to the level of tearing down the Jefferson Memorial or monticello, a president ial home. I think theres roo there is roa meaningful conversation but i do not believe ever we should be tearing down statues or anything else. I would guess that if i sat down with my. It might be a microcosm. Host caller i am a korean war veteran and as the admiral knows, the army is in the process of contemplating name changing. Im thinking about one that the navy might consider. I wonder often how often the trailers on the ship, particularly the black ones have any knowledge of where their ship was made. John became a senator from mississippi in 1947 and served in the senate until 1989 and they voted innumerable times against civil rights legislation and also voted against a proposition to doctor Martin Luther kings birthday to be a national holiday. He had a ship named after him not because he was a strict segregationist but because he was the head of an Appropriations Committee and when the navy would show up with requests for the coming year he was happy to fulfill them because he was a big fan of the military. Host lets get an answer from the admiral. Guest question and another good example of actual level conversation we ought to be having a. Someone like john i believe also was a prosecutor who prosecuted or failed to prosecute a case involving the murder is of African Americans in mississip mississippi. I dont know all the details of that from my limited level of knowledge and his propensity to be supportive of segregation. I would certainly be open to conversationst whether or not i would be part of such a sweep of name changes. In the good news category as you may or may not know the Navy Announced it would name its next Nuclear Carrier doris miller. I knew a lot about doris miller, an africanamerican out of texas in world war ii and ended up as a cook because that is about all you could do in the navy before recovery from segregation in the u. S. Navy. On december 71941, doris miller was a cook working in the back and heard the attack on pearl harbor charged up to the bridge of the ship, tried to save the life of the Commanding Officer of the ship then went down to the firing back, took a personal command if you come in charge of one of the guns and probably shot down by japanese aircraft, im trained to do that no regard for his life or Safety Committee was awarded the navy cross, second highest declaration, probably should have gotten a medal of honor but the good news is that navy has now chosen to be chosen to name the next Aircraft Carrier the doreen miller. Should they have a little bit of controversy to them, i think as i look at the navy ship came to these code names there are a couple of others. We had one named for a confederate naval officer. We have a ship called the chancellorsville named for the confederate name for the battle. These are things worth looking at alongside the pretty obvious ones to me the Army Installations around the count country. These are generals who took up arms against the United States and those are pretty clear positions. Lets take this as a national teachable moment and move forward in a way d that doesnt tear apart or destroy our history. I dont think thats whats happening here but history is like a river. Never cross the same river twice because it moves on. We need to, look at it with cler eyes and understand that river has moved on. Saat does that mean for us as a nation i think thats important conversation. Host hell did we get to where they were being named after the confederate generals orand some were named in the 1940s during world war ii. Host this is a long complicated story that has to do with things going on in the south of that time and in many cases they were collections of southerners who helped that the south would rise again or had been unjustly invaded by the north. This was part of the zeitgeist in places in the south. They were not in aftermath of the civil war but part of the growing sense in the early part of the 20th century that we needed to somehow glorified and this is part of the rise of the ku klux klan and there are Many Political figures including Woodrow Wilson who often speak to you again it has moved on and its time we had those conversations and make those changes and i would be surprised if they are not changed. I would be very surprised if robert e. Lee statues and high schools are not addressed that i think that its high time they aiare. Host you write about admiral chester calling him a leader of leaders but you also indicate that he was not respectful of women and nonwhites. Guest indeed. So how do we address someone like this in that regard. Lets play the tape of hiss lif. He comes out of texas and he has never seen the ocean. If he rises to become the most iconic for fighting admiral in history he takes command of the Pacific Fleet not that he always thought he would standing on the deck of a big beautiful battleship, takes command after pearl harbor. Every battleship is sunk. Explosions still in the air when he takes command a few weeks later, bodies are still being exhumed. There were still hundreds of themes today. He takes command of the broken. Shattered fleet and what does he do . Resilience. He takes the best, reshapes them, find the leaders of and also finds a quiet warriors and figures out how to tagteam their qualities and commanding the Pacific Fleet. He does everything right in terms of prosecuting that war and he sits on the deck of the missouri battleship and signs on behalf of the United States the documents are rendered to the japanese empire. Along the way he was like many at this time not respectful of people of color. He was a product of his times. He wouldnt be someone that we say to ourselves he was this way in the 1940s we will judge him by the standards of the 2020s. I dont think that is a valid test but its different than the Stonewall Jackson picking up arms against the United States of america killing thousands and thousands of Union Soldiers in defense of slavery, two very Different Cases so i stand in honoring his memory putting it into the context of understanding that history of what he is doing. I will close by saying this, we are doing things now that im suri amsure in 50 years people l look back on us and the choices weve made about Artificial Intelligence and bioethics. We are doing things now that it 50, 70, 100 years from now will look so wrong that river of history will move on. I am willing to be judged and i hope that those that charge the 100 years from now understand the context of the times that are also willing to make hard decisions about my legacy with the directives. Host walter, go ahead. Alcaller hello, admiral. Thank you for coming on cspan yd also cspan inviting you as a guest. From the way you answer questions and make presentations to, your collective and cognitive thinking is so superlative you are probably in the top three people ive seen on cspan to date the. [inaudible] i was in the navy and [inaudible] wove the navy and realized it is the one spokesperson for the United States. Us the sailors were over the world and people in those countries went out of their way to talk to us and ask us questions so we were pr representatives superlatives. I visit first person off the fip any place we stopped stop every block or two from somebody that spoke english and ask the questions about the country, the people. The one common denominator all over the world people have regarding americans, they couldnt understand why the americans were so happy. I have two questions im sure everyone in the military would love youran answers for. In general youve touched upon these two questions but not directly. Based on the state of things on matters in the world today im sure your number host if you can get to the question quickly appreciate that. Guest number one question how would you rate them on nuclear war standing of the world right now . Is a very good, great and second question knowing what you know, what could be the top for circumstances that could happen in reality that would trigger world war iii tax host thank you. Appreciate that. Go ahead, admiral. Guest those are big questions. I would say when the clock turned midnight we end up with a world war. I think it is like quarter of 420 of. In other words, it is a possibility but i dont see it about to happen. I would say that handson dclock for about two minutes to midnight so we are safer than we were at the height of the cold war in a cuban missile crisis kind of situation. You asked for four scenarios, im only going to give you two although they are outlines of it. The two possibilities would be a tnflict between china and the United States which could occur in the South China Sea as a result inadvertently of the two navies bumping up against each other, an incident that aescalates even as we are doing this Great Program at the moment, there are two navy carrier groups. These are the seeds china claims as territory on the waters so in that perspective we have two groups around the great lakes of the United States. Could escalate, possibly. Again that would be an escalation of a would be concerned about particularly. Second would be a cyber attack and this could come from china, russia coming to north korea and iran that have significant cyber capabilities. We think to ourselves how bad can that be. Okay i wont be able to go on the internet for a couple of days. Think again the internet of things as it is called today they have about 20 billion devices and it is the backbone for transportation, electricity, water, all of the fundamental infrastructure in our society. So a cyber attack that went after infrastructure here in the United States would demand a significant response and i think that could lead to an escalati escalation. I will throw one other one into the mix and that would be russia in a scenario where russia has a dramatic change of leadership but that i think that is unlike. Vladimir putin has probably solidified his control of that country that i can see scenarios where russia pulls out of the totalitarian control if you will and russia has 8,000 Nuclear Weapons. That is very concerning. Then india and pakistan there are the Nuclear Armed powers that are constantly at each others throats. At the moment the Nuclear Capability of both is under control of the military in both countries that could lead to a Nuclear Exchange that would be disastrous for there are some scenarios that ought to keep you awake at night but i would like to leave you with a thought weve been in the worst position before and i think we have much more at risk. The cuban missile crisis five minutes to midnight, two minutes to midnight. Today i think we are kind of 20 minutes meaning all the scenarios ive talked about there will be time to allow diplomacy and economics and other nonmilitary aspects p to help pull us back from the brink. That is my hope. Host 11 minutes left with the guest. Nancy from st. James city florida. Caller fascinating show thank you for taking my call. I wanted to talk for a minute of about leading up to the next book, admiral. The preface to my question is my husband and i were at the southern festival of books back in october of 2019 and Elliott Ackerman who is a thoughtful speaker on a panel also recorded on cspan for booktv discussing war in the military and have it in places on the revolution in returning he was sitting with another offer to give up the crowd at our and it was a Great Program so we met him and im curious about the process of you go writing your next book, 2034, with someone like Elliott Ackerman versus novels on your own or nonfiction on your own and then could you give an inside peek into your upcoming novel 2034 due out in march of 2021. Host thank you. Guest i sure can. By the way robert by himself as a successful novelist writingg historical fiction and a whole series of books about the American Naval captain in the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. And please give my best to eight dear friend and writer. I wrote nine bucks and they were all nonfiction and ive always wanted to write a novel. Any book list i offer to people is going to be two thirds fiction. I think we learn best from reading m fiction. I went to my editor at penguin press, wonderful guy. I said im ready to write a novel. He looked at me and said you are a great writer but he was not a novelist. I said yes i am, i was like a little kid. I can write a novel, i can write a novel. He said okay fine gives me an outline and a sample chapter or two so i did all that, he called me up and said you are a great guy and a great writer but you are not a novelist and i was crushed. Scott said says i have an ideaw a novelist who himself was shortlisted for the national book, award for his second novel dark crossing. Elliott has a new novel i would recommend called left dress blacklight. He said how about if you and elliott take your idea about the novel is a world war with china and collaborate. So i would do kind of the outline, the big idea of the politics, the strategy, before fighting, thee technology and elliott who is a gifted novelist with them right that people into it and make the characters i coe alive. The sneak peek is the subtitle which is 2034, thats the year so its roughly 15 years from now, 2034 a novel of the next world war. It is a story of how the United States could in fact stumble into a real shooting war with china and what would that look like and how would it start. With the Nuclear Exchanges, strategic exchanges or would it stowith astop at the tactical e . What fool would india play because it was going to get more and more important. What is the impact on people who get swept up in the global war like this . The cast andct characters had wh chinese, americans, indians in russian and iranian, a rich part of characters. Its also not a long book. It is definitely not a take note tom clancy showing you the latest device. It is a cautionary tale about what the war might look like on real people and i think it is a very moving back into the end of the day i think of it as some of the literature that came out of the cold war as cautionary about a Navy Destroyer that seeks to track a Russian Submarine in tracking this Russian Submarine and the cat andsu mouse game off the coast of greenland and iceland and how that could have dragged the nations into a war with or on the beach about an australian with a Nuclear Exchange that contaminates the worlds environment. These are cautionary tales. They are not designed to be predictive. They were completely opposite. Host as we do with all offers d on indepth we ask with some of their favorite books are and what youre currently reading. You send two pages for this we will show a couple that includes Margaret Atwoods the handmaids tale, blood meridian, the guns of august, barbara, a brief history of seven killings by marlon james and other books include tom wolfe bonfire of vanities, underground railroad. The handmaids tale, admiral . Guest what a marvelous work. Im going to guess many people willll have seen the series on Cable Television which i think is okay. The book is so chilling it will stop your heart. Its about a patriarchy that dominates women and the ultimate authoritarian state. Its deeply moving, beautifully written. When the no go is announced i hope it would be Margaret Atwood because of the scope for imagination. She has won the book scope of prize twice and i think that its shes canadian by the way for folks who dont know that. The handmaids tale is the ultimate cautionary tale for our time about an endgame of an authoritarian state. Its a beautiful book. Host currently reading splendid byhe erik larson, a lok at Winston Churchills leadership during the london blitz, the glass hotel by emilyy st. John and red dress and black and white by Elliott Ackerman who is the coauthor of the upcoming new novel 2034. Charles in fayetteville north carolina, we have one and a half minutes. Caller i also am a u. S. Navy veteran having served aboard mccormick as the vietnam war wasn. Winding down. I have one very important question for you i think and that is what are your thoughts regarding a person who has and always lived their life savings true north but who wants to in their years are on this earth to head in that direction that is to say to make the necessary course changes in their life so their lives may exemplify staying true north. Thank you for s your service, s. Guest thank you for yours as well. I think turn for turn those guided missile destroyers for the most powerful we ever put to sea so well done by you for failing in aa, real destroyer ts is a perfect way to end the conversation today. I couldnt have scripted it better if i had written it myself. The portrait above me here, john first tould be the admit his life was not always true north and any of us who are honest with say all of our lives are a series of rights standard runner or maybe back down a little from time to time but the more you say osce the more you understand t you can recover the course and come back from a bad turn. You cannot reverse the course completely if youve gone off the rails and there are so many instances of that in literature in life and i think we need to celebrate those who have that capability above all. Some people are very lucky and kind of been distinctively sailed true north. My wife isas like that. She has the purest heart of anybody that i know. The vast majority of us have to find our way on that compass to sailed true north. I can only encourage everybody to do three things. Think about it in the quiet hours ofht the night asking ourselveyourself how am i doing. Number two, look for examples in light of people who are doing that, whove come through deeply challenging situations. That is what it is often about. Number three, read, read, read some of the stories and celebrate them with others. Thank you for great question ans foa great questionand for your e navy. Al host as admiral stavridis writes in the most recent exhaling true north, the outlines of success are not adways apparent in early exploits. Admiral, thank you for being on for the past two hours. We appreciate it. Guest thanks a lot. It really is great to talk to you. You to. How are you quick. It seems milania trump is the most mysterious first lady we have ever had in modern times. The one we know the least about. Thats why set out to do this because there was this strange void of facts and information. During the 2016 campaign