Accidental admiral . Guest what a great question at a certain level all of our lives, you can choose to steer a particular course but the sea will come, the wind will come and you will go in a different direction. It comes from a period in my career when i was a four star admiral just finishing up at us Southern Command in charge of all military activities south of the United States and i was very hopeful in going to the pacific as commander of us Pacific Command which is a senior position, robert gates, called me up and said forget about the specific we are going to send you to nato so i became the first and thus far the only admiral, supreme allied commander in nato and it was an accident that did that. From the nato perspective i was be accidental admiral who became the supreme allied commander. Host the navy was an accident as well. Guest somewhat. I grew up in a marine corps family. My father fought in korea and vietnam. I grew up in that environment and went to Quantico High School just south of washington dc and went to the Naval Academy thinking i was going to be marine corps officer. After my first year in annapolis the navy sends everybody on a cruise so we go out on a ship, i went on a beautiful cruise in san diego and went on a ship in the evening, backed away from the p are late in the day, got up there and the sun was setting and i looked out on all that ocean and light and i was like st. Paul in the road to damascus, just wanted to be a sailor and be in ships. I went home and told my dad about it and my mom, shirley and they were hoping i was going to be a marine but they got over it years later, my dad said that came out okay. Host you almost left the navy after five years. I did. Graduated from annapolis and went to see for five years, in san diego and then went to mayport, florida where i am coming to you from today, my hometown, my inlaws, captain bob hall, at the end of that 5year period i was on an aircraft carrier, destroyer and aircraft carrier. At the end of those five years i could launch a missile. I was a capable mariner but i couldnt launch an idea. The navy stepped in, couldnt refuse and ended up going to the Fletcher School of law, graduate school of international relations, that is when i began to shift the focus of my career from exclusively focusing on maritime operations, mariner is part of my life and career but it came out of my time at fletcher in the early 1980s. As commander of nato in 20092013, you say in the accidental admiral a sailor takes command at nato you wrote 250,000 years to teach yourself, not others. Indeed, i felt as though a big part of my job as supreme allied commander of nato is to take ideas and move them across this enormous command. At the time there were 28 nations in nato, today there are 30, 3 million people, almost all volunteers, 4 million in reserves, 28,000 military aircraft, 800 oceangoing ships, very big command and i felt part of my job was communication of key ideas, the strategy so i spent a lot of time writing for my own benefit because for the benefit of those in the command. One of the chapters is about the plateau. What is that . The chateau is the official residence of supreme allied commander of nato. It is a beautiful french chateau which is on 26 acres, maintained and financed by the belgian government located in the south of brussels. It is a lovely place to live and is a Strategic Communication platform where supreme allied commander will post a dinner for all the heads of state and government of the nato alliance, he will host senior military officers around the alliance, partners, allies, friends, one of the most memorable dinners my wife laura and i held was for my opposite number in the russian federation, the Supreme Commander of the Russian Military whose name was nikolai makarov. We are both 5 inches 5 foot 5 inches tall, used to joke to secretary gates, my boss, who would call me after meeting him and say how did the meeting go and i would say it was great, we saw everything i to i which we did at our towering 5 foot 5 inch height but it is an example of the fact that we need to engage not only with those who are on our team, if we succeed in creating Real Security we have to engage with those with whom we have disagreement. All that occurred in the chateau. Host you write throughout my time as nato Strategic Commander i 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. Guest indeed. What i am particularly concerned about as i looked around in those years was 10 years ago i was concerned about afghanistan, libya, the balkans, piracy, Cyber Security but would increasingly concerned me was the potential of convergence between groups in impeccable to the United States, terrorist organizations and the proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Those are two extremes of threats and it is kind of like ghostbusters, you never want to let the streams cross so i worried a lot in those years about al qaeda funding its way to a nuclear demise. We should be continuing to be concerned not just about al qaeda but the islamic state, boca from in nigeria, our shabab in eastern africa, these groups try to find ways to obtain weapons of mass distraction. I worry a lot about convergence. Over the last we 10 years, what has added to that concern, cyber and Cyber Security because these groups are becoming more and more adept at using the tools of our offensive cyber capability to go after our finances, our infrastructure, our medical establishment, all quite vulnerable so to the context of ten years ago when i was focused on extremist organizations and Nuclear Weapons today i am equally concerned about cyber and cyber tools in the hands of such organizations and rogue states like north korea for example. Host admiral James Stavridis, can you get isolated when you are Supreme Commander of nato . Guest of course. You have to fight every day in a job like that to break out of the cocoon that your staff will try to put you in. This is true for any leader of any sizable organization. Your staff will want to take control, will want to dictate the tempo of the organization of your day, schedule your trips, control the information coming in, control Communications Going out. That is the nature of staff. They do that because it creates order where chaos might exist and it is a commendable and natural function of staff but as a commander i would argue you have to fight against that isolation. You have to rage against the dying of the light, you have to fight to get out of that, to find sources of information, to find ways to communicate simply and truly to your organization, demand that you have a voice in your schedule, where your priorities are because lets face it, your greatest asset as a commander whether you are the supreme allied commander of nato or the ceo of exxon or president of harvard university, if you are the leader of a Large Organization your most precious asset is your time and how you locate it and prioritize has to be reflected in your time and one thing i would do as a practical point to be made in such positions, we can often think the priorities are xyz. A very good exercise every 6 months is to get out a calendar and look back at the previous 6 months and say to yourself am i prioritizing my time in alignment with my supposed to priorities of xyz and i would find occasionally, more than occasionally that i would be prioritizing with my time abc despite the fact that my stated priorities were xyz. It is crucial to break and to use your own view of what your time should be and how it should be spent and all of that means getting out of that isolation, that bubble atypical staff will try to place a leader in. Host was it easier to get out of that bubble when you are on a ship and could Wander Around on your own . Guest it was and i wrote a book about that years ago when i was in my 30s called destroyer captain lessons of a first command, a very short book, a series of excerpts from the journals i kept the first time i took command at sea. I was lucky enough to be the captain of uss barry, beautiful, brandnew army burke class guided missile destroyer and i wanted desperately to connect with my crew and on a ship like that, it is a big ship, 500 feet long, longer than a football field, has a crew of 300350 depending on the configuration but it is a small universe unto itself especially when you are out at sea and as a captain you get to decide how to use your time. Are you going to sit in your chair on the bridge surveying the beautiful ocean . Are you going to spend the time locked in your cabin doing paperwork, those are real options or are you just going to get out on foot patrol in your ship and now every one of your sales and understand what brought them to the navy. All of that is part of being a good captain and it is not only done in ships at sea. It is part of any Good Organization the desire to get out and move around, know your people. All of that contributes to Effective Mission accomplished. Host what does army burke class mean . Guest the u. S. Navy for every type of ship, destroyers, cruisers, aircraft carriers, submarines, the first ship of that type is called the class. That type is the class leader, every destroyer of that particular type bill the same as the first one, called an army burke class destroyer. I commanded be bg 52, number 52. My ward for laurier, proud sponsor got to break the champagne bottle to christen the ship, she is the sponsor of pbg one one 3, 113, 52, 113. Every one of those destroyers is called an early burke class destroyer, built on the lines of the first one. Pretty wonderful to have a ship named after you, a deep honor but a particular honor to be the lead ship in the class and that honor was bestowed on admiral burke, the greatest of our destroyer officers, the most impactful surface line, chief of naval operations, the cn oh for six years, iconic naval figure, all the ships in that class i will close on this by saying the second of the class, mine was named the barry after john barry who is not terribly wellknown. He was a revolutionary war navy captain, contemporary roughly of John Paul Jones and was a superb naval officer. Those of us who served on the barry are proud of that. We are proud my wife is proud to be the sponsor of 113, at pearl harbor, all of us who served in any of those destroyers, destroyer men and women and serve in an earlybird class destroyer. Host admiral James Stavridis, all your books contain leadership lessons and one of those lessons are combination of lessons, bold autonomy versus organizational fidelity. Guest you have to have both. Another way to put this, theres only attention for a leader in 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 in the course of a 2hour conversation, life is not an on and off switch, not a binary choice between simply accepting tradition or innovate constantly constantly change, false choice. Instead of thinking of it as an on and off switch. The dimmer in the or dining room that makes the lighting perfect. A good leader has to find that balance between respect for the traditions from the organization against the innovation that is necessary to keep that organization moving forward and that is one of the keys to leadership. I will give you a practical example, Winston Churchill who was the equivalent of the secretary of the navy, the British Royal navy in the early part of the Twentieth Century and he was constantly wanting to innovate and drive change and therefore constantly in conflict with the admiralty. S1 point he simply heard too many times, churchill exploded and said tradition, i will give you the traditions of the navy, there is time when we have to move forward. Luckily for churchill he found somebody, sir Jackie Fisher in early Twentieth Century british admiral, the two of them for the partnership which helps move the royal navy along. Host your most recent book is called sailing true north 10 admirals and the voyage of character. What is true north . Adherence to what we broadly conceived of as moral and ethical behavior. You are trustworthy. And and you put yourself in the shoes, friends and family. You believe in things like democracy, liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of education, gender equality, racial inequality, we execute those values imperfectly but they are the right values and when taken to gather that value set plus the personal qualities i mentioned a moment ago, this is what it means to sail true north. Host in that book you write, quote, im motivated by a growing sense we are witnessing the slow death of character. Guest we are. We overshare publicly and underperform in thinking about our character, internal debate. It is not a book about leadership, it is a book about character. Those are two very different things. Leadership is a big door that swings in the world, influences others in that door of leadership swings for good or for ill. You think of Franklin Delano roosevelt, in the top five, perhaps the top two or three along with washington and lincoln. That door of leadership he exerted to get us through the great depression, through the second world war, that door of leadership was enormous and its one for good. On the other hand, think about a leader like paul part of cambodia, ruthless thug, but he was an effective leader, he could mobilize a society. It led to an awful genocide in the killing fields of cambodia, leadership is that door, big doors swing on small hinges. That small hinge, the character is the human heart. What your door of leadership is going to swing so i wanted to write a book and talk about character. We are awash in books of leadership. Just walk through the airport and you will see dozens of them in every bookstore. We are underweight in books about character, this idea of sailing true north. In the category of right wing, talking about character in the context of admirals in the sea. 10 admirals from history quebec 2500 years ago, all the way through the late Twentieth Century, admiral grace parker who dragged the navy kicking and screaming into the computer age, 10 stories of character hence the title of the book sailing true north, sailing true north 10 admirals and the voyage of character, that is the idea of the book. Host we will get into some of those in a minute but to go back to your quote about character, over sharon Attention Spans of shortens, are those comments directed at anyone in particular guest we can point to public figures today who would benefit from doing a little more reading and a little more thinking and a little more internal contemplation. To take the example into the twitter sphere in the world of twitter, and 140 characters to 270 characters. And it will make the tweets too long. A shot of espresso. And and the diet has tweeting in it, short, punchy reading, you need to be reading my view and the daily cycle, through things like reading the autonomous magazine for example which is one of the great magazines of the world. It was 200 years old, no bylines in it, and a reporter ego involved in it. It was resolutely journalistic and could detach that daily news cycle. Why would we find time, nonfiction which we talked about but i would argue, youre reading diet, physical fitness diet, dont to one exercise, a pretty prime based diet. Host what does the back of your Business Card say . Guest the back of my Business Card is blank. Should think about putting something clever back there. I will tell you a quote i like a lot that i would think about putting on the back of my Business Card which is a quote that is from arguably the greatest of modern greek writers. In his tombstone evens to the following idea, the same as the quote on his gravestone, i fear nothing, i am free. You will do what we think is right. You have that perspective that whatever we do we are only here for a brief moment or two in this world. If i were to put something on the back of my Business Card, a quote from a modern greek writer. Host Thomas Jefferson on the back of your personal Business Card. That was a famous quote by our second president , and jefferson said i cannot live without books. On the front of my Business Card is that, right down on the bottom. Host we are going to play a video from 2015 from a cspan program, from retired in a moral. You mentioned her in your most recent book sailing true north 10 admirals and the voyage of character. See if you recognize the voice. When i have been in command, you get your greatest sense of satisfaction. Some of the when youre in command, and miracles happen in every mission. And to observe that, to win the day somewhere. Did you recognize admiral howards voice . How do you give it away . That is my friends, admiral Michelle Howard, the first africanamerican to be a four star admiral in the United States navy. A little dynamo, maybe 5 feet tall. I am taller than she is. Thoughtful and kind, sales true north. I first met her when she was mentioning in the Naval Academy, to see a clay there, midsummer nights dream, part of the cast in midsummer nights dream. Really quite remarkable person, naval forces in europe, someone i have enormous respect for, hence the reason shes part of the profile in sailing true north 10 admirals and the voyage of character. Host in sailing true north 10 admirals and the voyage of character you wrote, quote, love of country despite the manifest laws of the state, a quality that leads to service for others and improve society lucky enough to develop true patriots. Guest so true. I want to make a point since you raise this idea of service which is the following. People say to me all the time, appreciate, admiral, thank you for your service and your 37 years in u. S. Navy and i appreciate that a lot. There are so many ways to serve this country. Certainly the military is one but how about our firefighters, our police, doctors, frontline of fighting covid19. How about teachers, an Elementary School teacher in rural South Carolina where my sister, and, came through into Charleston School district, teacher starts a, teaching a packed classroom. You think she is serving the country . I do. I think we need to talk and think more about service, that is inextricably tied to character and i believe we ought to thank people in the military but we are to thank all the people in a few more. How about our diplomats, how about our peace corps volunteers . How about our cia officers . We have so many ways to serve this country and i will throw in another one which may surprise you, how about our media . When i would go into afghanistan at supreme allied command surrounded by my personal security detail wearing bulletproof attire, steel helmet. I would go to the site and see a journalist, someone like richard angle who is our Foreign Correspondent at nbc news. Richard angle is standing there with a small, not really bulletproof vest and has a flip phone, with a 45 caliber weapon, i am surrounded by special forces who will use there is very capably, push comes to shove as the saying goes. All of those people serve the country in a variety of ways. Whenever people say thank you for your service, i appreciate that, go find a teacher and tell her thank you for your service, find a firefighter and thank him for his service, find a diplomat and thank her for working as the beauty chief in a tough embassy overseas. There are a lot of ways to serve this country, Michelle Howard embodies one form of that service was there are many others. Guest that is another one of the leadership lessons, being part of something larger than your self. Guest you have to be. I heard that phrase when i walked in the door of the us Naval Academy in 1972, otherwise known as 1. 2 million years ago and it was funny. Over the last couple days, a class of 2024 which arrives this year, a four your course in annapolis, they went through their induction day and because of covid19 they are coming in over the course of several days to create social distancing but it was the same to look at those young faces of men and women in butte with this desire to take on a huge challenge, to be part of this class that walks through the door, over 1000 and to be part of serving the country, to be part of something bigger than just your self. I saw that in the class of 2024 as they walked in, got their heads shaved and they continue. I know that class would be another marvelous class of graduates from annapolis, part of this unbroken line of service, not just annapolis, west point, the air force academy in colorado springs, Merchant Marine Academy at kings point new york. All the schools are places where young men and women choose to be part of something larger than themselves and that is the first step in the journey of leadership but more importantly the first step in the journey of character. Host thanks for joining us on in depth on booktv, this month our guest is retired admiral James Stavridis. He served in the u. S. Navy from 19762013 including a stint as commander of us Southern Command and supreme allied commander at nato from 2009 through 2013, served as dean of the Fletcher School of tough after that and currently works for nbc news and is an operating executive at the carlyle group. He is the author of several books, some coauthored, some of his own. Is a partial list. He was an editor on an update of command at sea. He wrote the accidental admiral a sailor takes command at nato about his time at nato. The leaders bookshelf coauthored by our manning hensel. Sea power the history and geopolitics of the worlds oceans in 2017. Sailing true north 10 admirals and the voyage of character came out last year. He has a new novel coming out in 2021 entitled 2034, a novel of the next world war. If you have questions or comments you would like to make to admiral James Stavridis, heres how you can do so. 202 is the area code, 7488200 if you live in the east and central time zone, 202748 have a 8271 in the mountain and pacific time zones, you can text a question or comment to the admiral, 2027488903 is the text number. All our social media sites as well, twitter, facebook, instagram, you can make comments, booktv is our handle. We will scroll through all of these addresses including our email address so if you want to make a comment to the admiral you can do so. Admiral, we talked about some of your books but one book we didnt mention was a proposed book called deep state. What is that . Guest in 2016, right about now in 2016, i was vetted for Vice President by candidate hillary clinton. John podesta who was her Campaign Manager, former chief of staff in the white house is a friend of mine, calls me up and said would you be willing to be vetted . I said sure. I always said i am open to the idea of service. I am a registered independent. I have always been so. In addition to being vetted for Vice President i was invited to trump tower after the election to have a discussion with president elect trump about a cabinet position. I mention it in the context that i am a bipartisan figure in many ways. I said to chief of staff, Campaign Manager john podesta, secretary clinton was nice enough to call me, i will be vetted. That turned into quite an experience, quite an experience to be vetted for Vice President. It means providing the campaign with every article you have ever written, every media appearance you ever made, all your bank records, all your social networks, all your school transcripts, your dental records, medical records, every tax return going back 20 years i think. It is a big, long process and also good with a lot of secrecy because it was something the campaign wanted to keep secret as long as they could. It broken the New York Times and became public but for well over a month or 6 weeks it was quite done behind the scenes. I would be sending all this unbelievable highly Sensitive Information to a bunch of email addresses was just one point i said to a close friend and advisor of mine, retired Navy Captain Bill harlow, spokesman at the cia, the intelligence group, i hope i am not actually sending all this information not to the clinton campaign, maneuvered to send to get into russian intelligence, that got us both chuckling, we found that pretty implausible but we started to think about that would make an interesting novel and so we did a treatment to a pathless individual that it for Vice President who start sending all this information to the campaign, unbeknownst to him he is sending it to an Intelligence Organization and so that is what i described to us the First Quarter of the book when that is revealed, he has to figure out how do i get out of it and so we thought it was a clever book, it was meant to be tongueincheek kind of like a novel by chris buckley, thank you for smoking, that kind of the book or Elmore Leonard style, and entertainment but we wrote it all up and sent it to our agents and our publishers and editors and it was resoundingly rejected because everybody said it is so implausible that a campaign would be tricked like that. Four years later im not so sure. Maybe, that is the story of deep stakes which is what is happening right now as former Vice President biden is in the process of picking a woman to be his candidate. It is really apropos at the moment. It was a fun little treatment to write up, Still Available if anybody is watching. Host what do you think about military folks in elected office . Guest i am 100 in favor. A really good example, how about president Dwight David Eisenhower who was not only a superb general, brilliant organizer, supreme allied commander of nato, president of columbia university. A lot of people missed that turn and went on to be a highly successful two term president of the United States, there are many marvelous books about eisenhower. I encourage people to read a crusade in europe which is as autobiographical treatment of his time in command. He was by all accounts who sailed true north and made his occasional mistakes in life and politics but overall was a superb mid Twentieth Century president , during a period of time when there was real danger in a cold war erupting, he managed that set of challenges brilliantly from 5260 and a great book about that is chairman thomass mikes bluff about the way eisenhower was a superb bridge player and could bluff his geopolitical opponent so there is one example and we could go on on this subject but theres plenty of precedent among elected office at the level of senators and representatives as there is at the level of eisenhower and i will close on another one, kind of got away i think in a sense and that would be colin powell. I wish colin powell had run for elected office. I think he would have been a remarkable president of the United States. He was a fine secretary of state and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a remarkable individual in so many ways. I think there is room for Superb Service from senior military in an administration elected and appointed. Host we begin with jim, youre on with admiral James Stavridis. Caller thanks for taking my call. I want to say i was impressed by your use of the word kindness. This is not a quality i associate with military figures and it is quite wonderful. My question is how far in advance does the military plan in terms of Weapon System strategy . How many decades, and on a related note how can we defuse what looks to be increasingly growing tension with china in the South China Sea . Two carrier groups going there now and i would like your thoughts on that. Host are you former navy . Caller i am not. Guest thanks for your question. That is a hard question on both counts. First of all planning. The military is the absolute best he and bastion at longrange planning. I would say short range planning is in the 1 to 2 year frame. Mid range planning is in the 357 year frame, longrange planning is 5 to 10 year with outlier plans that look even further than that. Military planning is both tactical, in other words if god for bid we got into a war with china we have plans for how we would execute that war. If we got into a war on the Korean Peninsula because kim jongun decided to attack the south, not a difficult possibility, we plan on how to respond to that. Additionally we have longerrange plans. A good example of this is factoring the midyear period in the Twentieth Century between world war i and world war ii, the navy in particular did a great deal of Detailed Planning for naval campaigns that might occur if we ended up in a war with japan for example. Militaries are exceptional planning organizations. Having said all of that i will say i think it was eisenhower who said no plan survives First Contact with the enemy. The enemy gets a vote. You can have a beautifully orchestrated plan but the enemys actions will be part of how the plan unfolds. I think it was general patton who said that a good plan violently executed is better than a perfect plan that you never get around to putting on the table. What he meant by that, this is true for all of us in every walk of life, you can let your desire for perfect becomes the enemy of really good. You have to know when to put your pencil down, put your plan in place, resource that plan, be prepared to execute it and now there will be twists and turns but one of the real skills in the military is planning and i will close by saying it is formally taught as a process to our young men and women at our service academies. When they his midcareer point, command Staff College for example, in the army is legendary, bastion of Detailed Planning that again that our war colleges for our lieutenant colonels, navy commanders, navy captains, Army Marine Corps colonels, they study planning again, at each level learning more, developing more detail, we are very good at that. Doesnt mean those plans are perfect but theres a detailed plan for virtually every contingency the military could encounter globally. Host another question of the moment. Guest what can we do. I will rephrase it this way. What can we do to avoid stumbling into another cold war, this time with china, or god for bid to get in a shooting war with china . And that is the most important question that our government should be thinking about internationally, that relationship between the United States and china. Lets say we have significant disagreements with china. Their intellectual property, cyber intrusions, the chinese claim the entire South China Sea, a huge body of water the size of the caribbean in the gulf of mexico combined, china claims the South China Sea as territorial seas of china. It is full of hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, fisheries and above all because 40 of the worlds trade moves through there. We are concerned about human rights with china, how they treat 1. 5 million muslim defendants in china pushed into encampments that are concentration camps, human rights in hong kong which ought to have another 30 years of two systems, one nation. We have a lot of disagreements with china. To your question how do we approach china i will tell you three quick things. First part of your excellent question we need a plan and i can assure you the military has plans for military engagement which i deeply hope we avoid but we dont have a national plan. We need one. My view would be take henry kissinger, perhaps our greatest living expert on china. Surround him with the most talented people who understand china economically, the world of finance, culture, and history, military operations etc. Have that brain trust, call it a commission if you will creating National Strategy or how we approach china in the Twentieth Century so lets get a plan. Number 2, philosophically use the following approach, confront where we must, cooperate where we can. Avoid that mindless cold war tension that existed between the United States and the soviet union for decades which has a blended to speed approach which says we will confront you, china, on intellectual property theft. We will confront you on your excessive claims and territoriality in the South China Sea, we will confront you when you seek to intrude in our elections which i fear may happen this year much as russia did in 2016, confront where we must but lets find some zones of cooperation, cooperate where we can, where can we cooperate . We can cooperate on the environment, shared desire to address the environment more responsibly. I hope the Trump Administration or whatever administration comes into power in november will return to the paris peace accords which we can cooperate with china on the environment, we could cooperate with china in the arctic or chinas significant desire to move through the seas as that ice is melting, we could cooperate with china on medical diplomacy. The us and china working together to address covid19 in the emerging markets around the world. Is the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective and also pragmatically and prosaically the right thing for our economy so those markets can stay open and Raw Materials can flow to china, to the United States for manufacture. We can cooperate with china on Disaster Relief when great tsunamis sweep through the pacific, the United States have hospital ships that deploy in the caribbean, deploy through the indian ocean. China has hospital ships. Can they work together. We should confront where we must, cooperate where we can and finally we need to be respectful of china. Their history, their culture. One of the chapters in sailing true north 10 admirals and the voyage of character is about in the early 1400s conducting voyages throughout the South China Sea and the indian ocean all the way to the coast a be into africa. We need to understand that culture. That doesnt mean we will acquiesce in claims to own the entire South China Sea but we need to put ourselves in the shoes of china, study them, understand them, read their literature if we are going to do the first two steps. That would be my prescription for dealing with china as we go forward. Thanks for great question. Host next call for admiral James Stavridis from parry in detroit. Caller thank you for taking my call. A comment and a quick question. My name is perry, thank you for the call. I am a navy that. I was a cryptology just for the navy. Even though i was in the navy i serve primarily on air force base is as the Naval Security group, the admiral said something about service and im a huge proponent of service, i work for the va. How do we turn or reinvigorate the conversation about personal service to our country where it seems the narrative now is everything is about me me me or the darker parts of our country, how do we turn the conversation to americans serving america as a whole . Thank you for taking the call . A deeply meaningful question. Thank you. As the saying goes, thank you for your service, glad to talk to a fellow navy vet and thank you for our work with our veterans and that entire organization, veterans administration, previously headed up by bob mcdonald, west point graduate, you are all serving the country, you are part of this culture of service. You asked how can we effectively move the nation to sail true north . Service is an enormous part of it. I will give you three quick ideas, part of a longer conversation. Those who are serving need to talk to others in our communities, be active role models, be engaged, post what they are doing on instagram and linkedin and facebook and twitter, talk about service. All of us need to do that. Maybe not everyone will write a book about it but every bit counts because our National Life is an enormous conversation and it is a big messy chewy conversation and that is the beauty of america and also one of our challenges. We are not an authoritarian authoritarian country or one set of the voices. Lets all of us who are involved in the service and believe it is important talk about it, personally, social networks, every way we can imagine. Writing letters to the local newspaper, take a question and frame it and send it to the detroit newspaper. Number one, we ought to be talking about it. Number 2 to all of us and i say this 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 is this candidate going to be somebody who personifies service, who will embrace the idea of service and support those who go into service . I understand how politically loaded a comment like that is today and i am talking to you whether you wake up in the morning watching morning joe on msnbc and by the end of the night you are watching to see what Rachel Maddow says on msnbc or you wake up in the morning with fox and friends, with brian kilmeade, a friend of mine for example and by the end of the night you cant wait to hear what sean hannity has to say. Im talking to everybody across the political spectrum. We are to get behind candidate to believe in service because service at the end of the day service is nonpartisan. It is bipartisan and nonpartisan. I think as voters we need to be looking for, continue a life of service, Veterans Affairs and this is a longer conversation but a third idea is incentivized service and we have a system and we do this to some degree today, the military has the ability to go into the military and collect something called the g. I. Bill that will help pave your education. We need comparable programs for other service, emts and peace corps volunteers, teachers in Rural Communities or underserved communities in our cities. We had that culture for the military for decades. The big good idea expand that that would be money well spent. There are three very quick idea ideas. I hope you will be my shipmate as we say in the navy and continue to work on all aspects of this great challenge for america in this 2t century in this particularly challenging moments. We have one hour left with our guest author of several books here is how you can contact him first of all via the phone lines 202 7488200 if you live in the Eastern Central thought time zones for those of you the mountains pacific engine pacific time zones that an email to book tv at cspan. Org. And you can text a message and if you do text a message in if you would include your first name and your city just like we do for our colors 202 7488903 is the text number. And finally we have several social media sites already to take your comments, facebook, twitter, instagram, just a member booktv is our handle. Lets take the next call from albert and arkansas albert please gos. Ahead. Reporter yes, sir. Very few people, american citizens understand countries and how people are in other countries around the world. Their poverty status the rich status education status one of the things i ended up joining cthe peace corps when i was a young man back in the 70s theres nothing like firsthand knowledge of who they are how they feel how they feel about america and all the sudden poverty, you dont look at people if you lived in Central America for eight or nine years as being poor. I would like you to talk a little more about the service as a trend if you can as far as peace corps. And i appreciate your service, of course. It is amazing how balanced you are in education, reading, also, reading for High School Student students. Thank you very much sir. Admiral . Thank you albert again i will return the compliment is in my get to my Navy Shipmate as i did a moment to go and say thank you for your service in the peace corps. The importance of the peace corps parade let me see a couple specific comments as peter said a little while ago, when i finished up my 37 career in the navy my long misspent youth in the navy, i started to think about what could i do next with my life . I started to ask mentors and everybody had a plan for admiral stavridis. Some people said hes going the Defense Industry work on a High Technology projects. Others said you need to go into business, focus on the emergence of tech. Others said you could go and be in Operations Director for a big Nongovernmental Organization like the red cross. Theres a lot of good ideas as the mentors specked the most of all the people ive had the privilege to work for and be around, i mentioned him earlier secretary of defense, robert yates. Sector gates what kept you in the navy for 37 years. So what might you want to do next. Io what had kept me inht the navy. Like wearing sharp looking uniforms. I like going to see, traveling ngaround the world i liked all of those things. The things i loved was mentoring young people. Taking care of young sailors and help guide the gorgeous trajectory of theirde lives. I said that to secretary gates and he said you should go into education. Those are the most powerful words for me. We forget this about secretary gates he was the director of the cia he was the director of the secretary of defense in both the bush and the obama administration. What he do in the middle . He was the president of texas a m he was the dean of the bush school at texas a m. He help me become the dean of lawn diplomacy and that, albert, is where i really came into contact with the peace i corps. The largest single cohort of the background of all of these marvelous a graduate student to come to the Fletcher School, come out of the peace corps. And so i learned a lot and i met so many young bright menan and women taken two years out of there very busy and impactful lives and devoted them to effectively mentoring others. That is what you do in the peace corps, typically. You are teaching others to do a wide variety of things for literacy, agricultural education, it is a marvelous way for somebody to give to the world. But at the same time to serve the United States. By becoming a peace corps volunteer, you go in represent your company in the best possible way. In a way that young people of other nations look up to and respect for your idealism is. Not everyone does that. I have enormous respect and i will close on the peace corps by saying one of our very close Family Friends is the cooksey family. One of their young daughters, young by my standards, someone in their 20s just came back from two years as a peace corps volunteer. We were at a wedding of her brother just a few months ago. I had a chance to sit and talk with their in about her experiences in east africa. It was a wonderful way to serve the country, i completely commend it to any who may be listeningay and again we ought to incentivize it provide the same rewards to someoneou who decides to go into aimer the marine corps. The two thumbs up for the peace corps. Admiral before we get to our next collar, i have been pronouncing yourro last name wrong for years. Im hearing Something Different from you is that correct . I think that sounds roughly like youre pronouncing ityo correctly. Believe me i have been called everything you can imagine in the most mispronunciation is admirals stradivarius. [laughter] forty much anything works. Youve got it just right. Fluent jerry in brooklyn please go ahead with your question or comment for admiral ksee 24 for. Admiral that was a perfect Career Change for you. I cannot think of a better person with the balance to work for young people. I too worked in nonprofits for 35 years with people with disabilities battered women, disabled vets, homeless, formerlys incarcerated. It is not about making money. I never made a lot of money in my life. Its about giving back and helping those who are less fortunate. Ii know young people will be very thankful down the road. One to say thank you very much for the Free Ivy League education today. You picked up where you left off. When i was watching you on cspan sailing true north. As soon as i argued about character that transcends leadership you like to quote short people you told me. You mentioned michele howard, 4foot ten africanamerican young lady then came from a challenging background that took down the somalia pirates owto be the first fourstar admiral africanamerican woman. Aic person you said had immense character. In the brief threestep plan with china i did not hear you mention anything about the media. You have a picture hanging up in your office he said of the uss maine that blew up in savannah harbor in 1898 causing the outbreak of the spanishamerican war. As a lot of media with their journalism that claim the spanish were responsible think you said they were actually called terrorist back then. Three when hey could you get your question very quickly. Caller yes im sorry, later on when the navy salvagen the ship they discovered assuming gary i apologize we are going to leave it there theres a lot on the table for the admiral to respond to. Guest jerry i will steer a gem finish her ist story for you its a very good one. Uss maine battleship blows up and they have anna harbor. In the yellow journalist skims the story of a mine thats placed on the exterior of the ship that blew it up. Terrorist by the spanish and we launch this war. In fact when they salvage the ship 50 years later we discovered and blew up because of anro internal explosion, probably a boiler or powder magazine. I keep a picture of the main on my wall to remind me of that incident because there are two really powerful lessonss there. Wherever you are, however highend motto you are can realize your ship can blow up under your feet at anyt moment. Can recognize a world can change forever and ane instant, that is a good thing to hang on your wall. The second thing is really the point you were making. Before you take precipitous action, or to somebody now or fire somebody, and before you do that next you have all of the facts right. Becausean so many times that initial set of facts which you are just so sure turns out to be not sour much. Like when the United States invaded iraq. We knew that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Nobodydy lied our intelligence communities got it wrong. They got terribly wrong, he ended up with a war. Thinkif how different the world would be, who knows better or worse or how different the world would be if we had not much into iraq. Another example why keep the battleship maine on the wall in my office wherever i am. Theres one here outside that door is a picture of myself and senator mccain minutes till feta for one second periodne that is me and john mccain,na senator mccain. Senator mccain is someone, and my view, sailed through northward he made many mistakes in his life personal and political but he was a hero in the haner way hilton. When he went to congress to represent a state of arizona he did what he thoughtat was right without turning fear or favor as the saying goes. Its important to have people that you respect a new can look at their story. Think what you will find for most people is that those stories, personal challenge in overcoming a child like being a prisoner of war they deepen the character. Knowing people like that who then sailed true north in their lives people live to admire. Here is another video clip of someone you mentioned in sailing true north. Every morning we were required to make our beds to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time especially in light of the fact you are aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle hardened seals. The wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over. If you make your bed every morning you will have liaccomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride will align to do another task and another and another and by the end of the day that one task completed will turn into many tasks completed, egging your bed will also reinforce the fact the Little Things in life matter. If you cant do the Little Things right, youll never be able to do big things right. Admiral . Guest easy one that is my very dear friend admiral bill mcraven. Many of you will see his book called make your bed and i believe the excerpt is probably from the speech he gave at the universityvi of texas which was also entitled make your bed. I will tell you why quote him in my book. Not because hes a thinker and a writer, all those things are true i included him in my book because it is very resilient. Very enormous part of characters how you perform in adversity. Abraham lincoln stand adversity a few a mans character, give him power. I think admiral mcraven does that for me. He handles being in a powerful position be extremely well and those case and particular he is dealt with medical challenge in ways i cant comprehend. Ive beenen very lucky in my life to be extremely healthy. Im touching would hear arm on a wooden chair ive never broken a bone ive never had a stitch in my body have never spent a night in the hospital i am in my 60s, ive been very lucky. Bill not so much. Just two examples as a senior officer he was in a terrible parachuting accident. His parish and did not open or partially open and somehow he survived that. T. He ended up hospitalized for a significant period of time. As a result, he was not part of the first wave with the war on terrorism despite the fact he had trained his whole life as a seal. And here he was ined a hospital bed. He came back from the injury he ended up with a form of leukemia, very debilitating one that creates cycles of taking chemicals and having it reversed for a period of time in them back again. He has dealt with that stoically, quietly, he does not hide the fact nor does he trump the fact, he deals withor that. Our member t talking to them once were both fourstar admirals are sitting in a bus driving back from dinner at the white house with president obama some matter fact i turned to bill and sort of said how are you doing . How are you doing with the leukemia . Onions andt jim, its just another mission, ideal that every day. He has that kind ofw resilience that i have a lot of respect for that is why included bill in sailing true north and he certainly does. He will appear with paul in orlando. Thank you for taking my call thank you for cspan, admiral what a treat it is for a land liver civilian like me to it talk to you. I start every day on washington journal but ive got to confess every now and then i catch him on morning dope. I really do value your opinion. Im very concerned about how aggressive china is becoming. Peter, forgive me i came in mid program. If this is redundant i am sorry. I have some ideas of my own and i have my own response of them breaking the treaty over i likeng would be and to get your comments, admiral. I dont see anything wrong with telling china i dont see anything wrong with kicking some of the Chinese Government owned companies off the new york stock exchange. And i would love the wto to reclassify china, not as a developing country but as i think my commons off the air we love you and cspan2 but we miss you on washington journal. Thanks gentlemen and have a good weekend. Guest paul thank you. Theres two examples very reasonable responses that should be o considered as part of a larger strategic train work we dont need a onesie, tuesday pull thiss credential we need a coherent Strategic Plan in addition to the ones i mentioned earlier in the show, very important element in this is taiwan. Which is part of chinas sovereign territory with the caveat that for the 50 years following 1997 when nation to systems as laws and regulations in addition to what i mentioned earlier i would add and they want to pull taiwan into chinas sovereign for they believe taiwan is part of the serenity both community does not include that. We have a strategically somewhat ambiguous with taiwan. We can build on that by increasing weapons sales to taiwan. Will have them pull into ports. All these are port visits we could be conducting. All of this with i think give china pause. Deeply annoying to china but also give positive. I think we need a spectrum of responses with taiwan. Some that are importantly economically based, education to track diplomacy. All of that needs to be part of the approach with china. And it needs to be done coherently and part of a holistic plan. I want to make in a really important point here by the way. We have hundreds of thousands of millions of Chinese Americans who live here in the United States. Many have been here for many generations. Some have more recently arrived. One of them is myed soninlaw doctor jimmy long. He is a first generation american he is the first of his family born here. His parents immigrated here as students. His mother became a very successful dentist, his father became a very successful investor. He is a physician he is on the frontline of covid he is a result of the immigration and has enjoyed from china over the years we need to be careful here between china and the wto. So we dont end up in a severe cold war or god forbid aar shooting war. Neither of which are impossible their deep cultural diplomatic and personal relationships that are in play here we have a new novel coming out next year novel of the next world war this is a text message we received for you i am a 33 active duty officer why are more americans not extremely concerned about american statutes grant our histories definitely undergu attack by the west wing it certainly is thoughts . Guest me look at that. We will have a National Conversation we are beginning to about which statues of what individuals from what. Ofof history opt to be reexamined. 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 there will for were by definition traders 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 individuals pass muster, she is a military term. To have a statue put up about them. I think where there are such statues on there are many of them around the country, i think it is time to have a commission probably will come to the conclusion as i have that its time to take them down. Put them in a museum, study the history of the civil war. It is a cautionary tale for our times. So i think confederate generals and admirals should not be glorified with statues in public places. On the other hand we have our founding fathers. I am well aware of the instances that my fellow veterans pointss out, systems that individuals who have gone after a statue for example of general and president grant. I am very aware of the movement to take down statues of Thomas Jefferson who was a slaveowner for example. I can understand that a motion, but i think is a different set of circumstances than the ones i mentioned a moment ago. And so, the world should not make these decisionshe based on retiredn admiral James Stavridis. We should have a collective conversation. My vote would be taken the statues, take down the monuments of confederate admirals and generals. For my money, washington, jefferson, grant, not perfect and were slave owners. But in the Broad Spectrum of their life and times, their lcontributions are striking. There statues and monuments need to remain on display perhaps indicating that in addition to all that is known, making the points that jefferson helps slave. That is a valid historical points to me it does not rise to the level of tearing down the Jefferson Memorial or tearing downn monticello the president ial home outside of charlottesville. I doo not believe should not be tearing down statues or anything else. Steven is calling in from bremerton washington. Thats a navy town is in it . Caller it sure is. As a matter fact the subject i want toal talk about periodically comes in here to be refit. I am a korean war veteran. As the admiral knows the armies in the process of contemplating name changing. I am thinking about one the navy should consider. I wonder often, how often the sailors on that ship especially the black ones have any knowledge for whom there ship is named he came and served in the senate until 1989. He voted in times against all civil rights legislation. And he also voted against a proposition for doctor Martin Luther kings birthday to be a national holiday. He got a ship named after him not because he was a strict segregationist, but because he was head of the Appropriations Committee and when ever the navy would show up in front of him with their request for the coming year, he was only too happy to o fulfill them. Host right steven lets get in answer from admiral stavridi stavridis. Guest terrific question another good example of a National Level conversation we ought to be happening. I think someone like John C Stennis by whom i am not deeply versed. I believe he was also a prosecutor who failed to prosecute a significant case involving the murders of African Americans in mississippi. I do not know all the details of that. You correctly point out for my limited level of knowledge about john sees dennis, his propensity to be very supportive of segregation. Utterly failed policy in every dimension. I would certainly be open to conversation about the uss john sees danis and if its a sweep of name changes. In a good news category she may or may not know the u. S. Navy Just Announced they would name it next Nuclear Powered aircraftft carrier uss doris i know a lot about doris muller who was an africanamerican, came out of texas preworld war ii, ended up as a cook because thats about all you could do in the navy before we managed to get away from segregation in the u. S. Navy. On december 7, 1941, dori mullerer was a cook working in the mass and heard the attack on pearl harbor charged up to the bridge of the ship, trying to say the life of a Commanding Officer of the ship. They went down to the firing deck on the ship to a personal command, charge of one of the antiaf airway guns. Probably shot down a japanese aircraft. Untrained to do that. No regard for his life or safet safety. He was awarded the navy cross the secondhighest decoration. Probably shouldve gotten a medal of honor. The good news again is the navy has now chosen to name the next Nuclear Aircraft carrier the dori muller. Set shift nays always have a little bit of controversy to themth as a couple others that we need to look at. We have an oceanography name for a confederate naval officer. We have it ship called the chancellors named for the confederate name of the battle these are things worth looking at alongside the pretty obvious ones to me are the Army Installations around the country which are named for beauregard and lee and jackson and braggs, these are generals who took up arms against the United States. Those are pretty clear decisions again lets have a conversation, lets take this as a national teachable moment and lets move forward in a way that does not tear apart or destroy our history. I dont think thats whats happening here. The plains indians say you never cross the same river twice because the river moves on. That is what history is, its a river we need to look at with clear eyes and understand the river has moved on. What does that mean for us as a nation . That is an important conversation. Host admiral how did we get to where fort bragg and fort hood were being named after confederate generals. Of these were named in the 1940s during world war ii. Guest they were in this is a long complicated story that has to do with things that were going on in the south at that time. Yin many cases these were collections of southerners who felt as though the south would rise again or had been on justly invaded by the north. These were not, she pointed out the part of the growing part in this kind of glorify the proud south is part of the of the clue clerks plan to do this kind of thinking, again that river has moved on ill be very surprised if these bases are changed i think its high time they were. In sailing true north you write about admiral chester nimitz. You also indicate of women and nonwhites. Indeed. And so how are we to judge someone like a chester nimitz in that regard . Lets play the tape of his life. He comes out of texas when he went off to annapolis but he rises to become the most iconic war fighting admiral in american history. He takes command of the Pacific Fleet not just because he thought he would stand in on the deck of a big beautiful battleship, he takes command after pearl harbor. Every battleship sunk and the smell from thehe explosion is still in the air when he takes command a couple weeks later. Bodies are intended to be exhumed there still hundreds of them in the arizona today. Went to see do . Hes resilient. He builds teams. He quietly takes the very best of the existing staff, he reshapes them, he also finds the kind of quiet warriors and figures out how to tagteam their qualities the commanding parts of these Pacific Fleet. He has to work with douglas macarthur, an enormous ego, is essentially as army counterpart in the massive pacific theater. Everything in terms of prosecuting that war he signs on behalf the United States the document of surrender with the japanese empire. Pretty good sweep and along the way he was in that sense a product of his times saying to ourselves he was this94 way in the 1940s and will judge him standards of the 2020s. I dont think that is a valid test. Killing thousands and thousands in defense of slavery two very Different Cases honoring his memory again putting it in the context of understanding i will close by saying this things like Artificial Intelligence about bioethics, that riverli of history will move on will judge us as well. Im willing to be judged and im helping those who judge me 100 years from now, understand the context of the times. Simon walter in arizona please go ahead. Caller viadmiral i like to thank you for being on cspan and cspan for inviting you in as a guest. The way you answer questions and make presentations, probably in the top three and i am ex navy love the navy, left the navy on the fast. I love the navy and realize the navy is the number one spokesperson for the United States. Us sailors were all over the world and people in those countries went out of their way to talk to us. And they asked us questions so we were pr representatives. I was the first person off the ship and usually the last person back on. Any place we stopped we stopped every block or two, found someone who spoke english and asked questions about the country, the, people, the one common denominator all over the world that people regarding americans they could not understand why the american was so happy. Ive two questions and im sure everyone in the military would love to hear answers for. In general, you have touched upon these two questions, but not directly as far as definitively. Based on the state of things, of manners in the world today, im sure c1 hey walter if you could get to your questions quickly, wed appreciate that. Caller number one question is, the non nuclear were standing of the world right now is a very good . Great . Host second question . Second question knowing what were the top four circumstances in reality that would trigger world war iii . Host thank you sir go ahead admiral stavridis. Those are big questions. As if it was a clock and the clock turned to midnight, we end up with a world war. I think the clock is somewhat like quarter of or 20 of the is a real i possibility. I dont sit eminence, i dont sit about to happen. The clock is like the cuban missile crisis, which you alluded to. I would say the hands of the clock are two minutes until midnight. Were safer than we were at the height of the cold war the cuban missile crisis kind of situatio situation. After four scenarios all give you two are two possibilities that could drag us into a world war would be a conflict between china and the United States which could occur in the South China Sea as s a result inadvertently of the two navies bumping up against eachn other, and incidents that escalates even as her during this Great Program for cspan2 at this moment there are two battle groups in the South China Sea. From the chinese perspective seeming around the great lakes of the United States. Could that escalate . Possibly. Again, thats something ill be concerned about particularly. The second will be a cyber attack this could come from china, russia, north korea and iran have significant cyber capabilities. We think to ourselves how bad can a cyber attack be . Okay i wont be able to go on the internet for couple of days. Think again. The internet of things and it is called, today has about 20 billion devices on it. It is the backbone for transportation, electricity, water all of the fundamental in the society. So a cyber attack went after infrastructure here in the United States would demand a significant response. Ii think that could lead to an escalation. I will throw one other one into the mix. That would be russia in a scenario where russia has a dramatic change of leadership. That was unlikely i could see scenarios where russia falls out of totalitarian control if you will and yet russia has 8000 Nuclear Weapons. That is very concerning. And forth and finally, india pakistan. Here are two Nuclear Armed powers at the moment the Nuclear Capability of both is under control and under good control in both countries i would certainly lead to a Nuclear Exchange which would be disastrous globally those are scenarios that would keep you awake at night. I will leave you knowing we were in a worse position at four we were in a much worse risk with c the cuban missile crisis at five minutes until midnight, two minutes until midnight today i think we are 20 minutes to midnight meeting all the scenarios ive talked about, there will be time to allow diplomacy and economics and other non military aspects to help pull us back from the brink. That is certainly my hope. Host eleven minutes left with o our guest admiral James Stavridis. Caller fascinating show thank you for taking my call. I wanted to talk for a minute about leading up to your next book, admiral, the preface to my question is that my husband and i were at the southern festival of books back in octoberma 2019. And Elliot Ackerman was a thoughtful speaker he was on a panel recorded on cspan for book tv war and the military. Hed wharton places on war revolution and returning. It was a Great Program. We nudge him and i am curious about the process of you cowriting your next book, 2034 with settlement like Elliott Ackerman versus writing novels on your own or your nonfiction on your own . And then could you give usid a little insight or speak to your upcoming novel, 2034 so he was a very successful novelist they devoured them about an american Naval Academy at the end of the 19th Century Hotel high became a novelist. I wrote nine books and they were all nonfiction. Ive always wanted to write a novel. I love fiction, any book that i offered to people will be two thirds fiction. We learn best from fiction from reading fiction. So i went to my editor at penguin press, a wonderful guy , i said im ready to write a novel and scott looked at me and said admiral you are a great writer but you areat no novelistst. I said yes i was i was like a little kid i can write a novel i know how to write a novel i can write fiction. Like okay give me an outline, give me a sample chapter or two. So i d did that and i sent it to them and he called mee up and said admiral your great guy, your great writer you are not ais novelist. I was crushed. But scott said i have an idea. I know a novelist Elliott Ackerman who himself was shortlisted for the National Book awards for his second novel elliott has a new novel out red dress in black and white about a love triangle in istanbul. So scott moyer said admiral how about if you and elliott take your idea about wordsworth china and collaborate onso that. As in the outline the big idea the geopolitics the strategy the were fighting the technology, elliott is truly a gifted novelist within right the people into it. He would make characters come live. I think it is a nice next as it has come out sprayed the sneak peak is the subtitle which is 2034, that is the year so it set roughly 15 years of now, 2034 a novel of the next world war. I say how the United States could in fact stumbleea into a real shooting war with china. What would that look like . How would that start . Would there be Nuclear Exchanges . Would there be strategic Nuclear Exchanges . Or would it stop at tactical changes. What role would india play . As a century unfolds, the role of india will get more and more important. So what is the impact on people who get swept up in a global war like this . The cast of character has both chinese and americans and indians and russians and iranians at the very rich palette of characters. Its also not a long book is not the winds of war and war and resemblance. It iss definitely not a techno thriller its not tom clancy showing you the latest of the war. It is a cautionary tale about what a war might look like what it might be on real people and countries and i think it is a very moving book. I think about it some of the literature that came out of the cold war was cautionary that novel failsafe of the United States and russia almost getting into a nuclear war and having a tactical Nuclear Exchange for the bedford incident about a Navy Destroyer that seeks to track a russian submarine. The captain of that destroyer becomes a modernday ahab as in moby dick tracking this russian submarine. The cat and mouse game they play in the icy waters off the coast of greenland and iceland , how that could have dragged those two nations into a war. Or on the beach by an australian about a Nuclear Exchange that contaminates the worldss environment. These are cautionary tales, they are novels, they are fiction, they are not designed to be predictive. Theyre helpfully the opposite and that they are cautionary. As we do with all authors on indepth. We wonder what the favorite books are, what they are currently reading . Admiral stavridis sent us two pages worth we will show you a couple of those the guns of august, a brief history of seven killings and some other books included is the vanities, underground railroad, by colson whitehead, the handmaids tale, admiral . Guest what am marvelous, marvelous work of imagination. I would guess thatpe many people listing the series on Cable Television which is the book is so chilling it will stop your heart. It is about a patriarchy that dominates women. It is about the ultimate authoritative state it is deeply moving, every year the nobel prize for literature is announced i wake up hoping that it is going to be Margaret Atwood because of the scope of her imagination. She is one the booker prize twice. And is among the greatest of living writers. She is canadian by the way. The handmaids tale is the ultimately tale of our time about an end game of an authoritative in state it is a beautiful book. Currently reading splendid in the vial by eric larson the look at Winston Churchills leadership during the blitz. The glass hotel by emily st. John, and red dress in black and whiteis with Elliott Ackerman who is the coauthor of your upcoming new novel, 2034. Move one half minutes. With a good morning to you thank you very much for taking my cal call. Admiral, i am also a u. S. Navy having served aboard the uss mccormick is a vietnam war was winding down one important question for you i think in the what are your thoughts regarding a person has not always lived their life failing to north who wants to their years here onn this earth one of every direction thats making the necessary course changes in their life that their life may exemplify sailing true north . Thank you very much for your servicer. Guest thank you very much for yours as well, shipmate. I think the adams class eeg guided missile destroyers were the most powerful small shipst we ever put to sea. So well done to you for sailing in a real destroyer. Your question is a perfect way to end our conversation today. I could not have scripted it better if i had written the last question myself. Portrait is above me here for john mccain. He washa the first to admit that his life was not always staying true know it. Any of us who are honest would say all of our lives are a series of left a full rudder, write standard rudder may be backing down a little from time to time. But the more you sale at sea, the more you understand you can recover the course. You can come back from a bad turn. You can reverse course i completely if youve really got off the rails. There are so many instances of that in literature, and life, and i think we need toe celebrate those who have that capability above all. Some people are very lucky and actually sailed through north. My wife, laura, is like that. She has the purest, good a start ofe anyone i know. Very few people are like that. The vast majority of us have on thatour way compass to sailed true north. I can only d encourage everybody to do three things, think about it in a quiet hours of the night, ask yourself how am i doing . Number two, look for examples in life of people who are doing that who have come back from deeply challenging situations. That is what sailing true north is often about, my book. And number three, read, read, read. Find those stories and celebrate them with others. navy. Host and as admiral stavridis writes in his most recent book, sailing true north, the outlines of success are not always apparent in early exploits. Admiral stavridis, thank you for being on booktv for the past two hours. We appreciate it