Of freedom and democracy in American Foreign policy will feature general hr mcmasters who served in the military for 34 years and held the position of the 20 sixth assistant to the president for National Security affairs as well as being a close friend of my husband for many years. He will talk about his new book battlegrounds the fight to defend the free world, with doctor michael crow, the sixteenth president of Arizona State university. Mccain Institute Trustee and a dear friend of the family. We are honored to host mcmaster for what is an important and timely discussion on us foreign policy. You can begin. Glad to see everybody here. What i want to do first is say the book is a fantastic piece of work, got many little tags on it. I want to spend some time relative to a set of core ideas you put out in this book some that are fantastic in the sense that they are concepts we should be using in the articulation of our thinking about foreignpolicy and National Defense policy and so forth and i articulated 20 questions for you. 17 i would like quick answers to, not elongated answers and last i want to spend a bunch of time on. The first one, you articulate this, unbelievable change, look at the results of the two great wars of the twentieth century, the most peaceful europe we have ever seen, the greatest advance of democracy in the history of our species, economic progress like no one could have or have imagined, realignment of germany and japan, successful economic democracy so the question to you goes back to the wilsonian promise, protect the senate, advance democracy. In general, how do you think things are going in general in the last hundred 20 years in general . What a pleasure it is to be with you at an institute, senator mccain, i admired him and his record of service and you and your record of service and what you have done. A wonderful institution. The way you do that, if you look at this last hundred years in the context of the broad sweep of history we made tremendous progress especially after the most district of wars, world war i and world war ii, peace without great power and as you alluded to, people out of poverty. Complacency never works. I lost you for a second. Let me go to we view things, no complacency, lots of progress, tremendous struggle, it is a struggle for the soul and the core of humanity, individually free humans will advance our own lives based on the Core Principles of our democracy as a species or not. One of the words you use in battleground is an important one to me as a wrestler and the things i have been involved in. What is the core of a fight. It is more than marshall and you talk about that. What is the core of the fight. The core of the fight is we have to compete effectively, free and open societies remain secure and prosperous and extend influence effectively and we have to recognize we have to compete and reenter a competition we vacated because of over optimism in the 1990s and too much precedent and resignation in the 2000s and we are at a fundamental level in a competition between free and open societies and closed authoritarian systems. The fight and the competition is more than marshall. It is philosophical. Im not going to say cultural. That would be the wrong word. It is about Core Principles of who we are as humans and there are marshall elements to defend yourself from being overrun or wounded by others and that is the nature of the fight. For strategic competence. To integrate all the elements of National Power with element of likeminded partners so we dont want to militarize policy but to use diplomacy for Law Enforcement or information and communication. It is our ability to innovate those effort and increasingly in the late efforts across the public and private sector and approach the problems at Arizona State which is an interdisciplinary approach to these challenges. You made significant contributions to the design of National Defense policy, this notion of when did something not become a strategic threat so i will use russia which we talk a lot about and has been a strategic threat to the United States and may still be a strategic threat Going Forward but i have been all over places, my first visit in 1991 i got off the plane and said youve got to be kidding me, they dont know how to jacobin airplane. It doesnt mean they are not a military threat or not a strategic threat but their economy has been declining. They cant float a navy, they have a dictator who roams the planet to doing whatever he wants with this sort of new approach, mexicos economy is almost as large as russias economy. The question is in short form, when is the threat no longer strategic . At what point is it no longer strategic . It is strategic if you have a Massive Nuclear arsenal. They dont want to compete with us on our own terms, they want to drag everybody else down. Vladimir putin recognizes the constraint he is under economically, demographically, especially in the wake of Simon Sebag Montefiore for, the oil crisis, they poisoned his main political opponent, he is engaged in a sustained campaign of political subversion against us. What russia really wants to do is so doubts about who we are as people to polarize our society, pit us against each other and reduce confidence in democratic principles and institutions and processes. Russia isnt Strong Enough to create vulnerabilities, but Strong Enough to exploit them and that is what you see russia doing. Vladimir putins theory of victory is to be the last man standing. Against the free world. The classic position of a dictator, a singularly focused individual with no interest beyond themselves. And is given by these emotions, the sense of honor lost after the call lapse of the soviet union and his ambition to restore russia to national greatness. Hes using tools that he has available which are limited but also very dangerous. Host particularly as they decline, the nature of a different kind of classification for strategic relationship. Next question. The u. S. Army was a small institution. The military of the United States was generally only expanded for the time of war and never found ourselves in a mentation of maintaining a war fitting or war capability for decade after decade after decade. This is the first time we have done this. What are the costs or risks of maintaining, but the way it is. It should be a permanent deterrence. What you want is to build and armed force that can convince your adversaries they could not accomplish their objectives through use of force against you, if there ever was an age of Free Security when north america could rely on the two great modes of the atlantic and Pacific Ocean technology had a limited security. We are in an increasingly interconnected and shrinking world in which challenges to our security overseas can readily reach our shores whether it is jihadist terrorists on september 11th, 2001, or a new coronavirus that reached our shores earlier this year. We have to stay engaged, broad range of defensive capabilities not just military. They cant accomplish their objectives through use of force or use of other means below the issue of eliciting the terry response. Host that segues to my next question, how do you design a company of Defense Strategy, political interference, all these things, the military is not equipped to deal with all those things, not equipped to deal with some of them at all. We look like a pack of fools because we cant get our act together, cant get command and control decisions. A lot of things are going on at all levels like the National Level. The question is a simple one. How do you design a comprehensive Defense Strategy . How do you design a competent of Defense Strategy that is more than military. Guest start with design thinking, framing complex challenges. Understanding them on their own terms and viewing them through the lens of our vital interests, why do we care, then craft overarching goals and specific objectives and the tools and competitive advantages at our disposal. That is the beginning of being able to develop a policy and a strategy. Assumptions as you are mentioning, what are the limits of competency in the system we have butts very important to acknowledge the degree to which others have agency and authorship over the future and represent the interactive nature of these competitions. We skip a lot of these steps. We tend to rush to actions we are helpful with already or try to fit everything into a military cylinder of excellence instead of recognizing real competent comes with integrating a reference. Host the design approach is exactly it and you articulate this and you talk about identifying and respecting the agency of our adversaries or competitors as well as enhancing the agency of different groups in the United States because rethinking the entire process as you suggest later to be nonlinear, and nothing that covid19 has shown us. Linear thinking, we knew covid19 was coming, we knew there would be great pandemics, we thought in linear ways and we werent ready. Guest and the models were wrong. We misunderstood big aspects of the problem. We werent as agile as we needed to be. The words i would use the we have to emphasize is the ability to coordinate and integrate efforts. We are a federal system. We are a republican. We are not going to have strong centralized control. We would be terrible if we tried to do it. We have to coordinate integrate more effectively and with the private sector as well. In short form leaving time for questions at the end. World war i and world war ii changed europe forever, the alignment was saved, the last 400 years of social and cultural progress was saved, those two wars insured destabilization of europe and it looks like people are no longer interested in the maintenance of this alliance and the maintenance of this western alliance so good or bad, i know the answer but how bad is it . It is bad. The situation and prospects not as bad as we think, the growing realization, we are all in this together. This diplomacy, nothing like the prospect to focus the mind. In the west, within europe and between europe and the United States the transatlantic relationship, the European Union but culturally and in terms of principles and values, we are in a competition. That was the first step and we have to cooperate to build a Better Future for generations to come and there is a growing realization as we are in this crisis of covid19. The recession associated with that is a crisis of confidence as well. Host one thing, very clearly, this are in gw next generation warfare. The successful implementation of those methods of comprehensive conflict, social disruption, political disruption, social media messaging, a number of those here in our country and others around the world. The question, why are we not countering it with the same approach or undermining that approach . Guest we are starting to. The Us Government along with allies, a lot of coordination going on that doesnt meet the eye. We need to become better at it. Look at the contrast with the 2016 election and lack of effectiveness, you see what our defense if measures, changes of policy that unleash cyber capabilities. What is also important is you use your competitive advantages. We conduct Law Enforcement investigations, with Internet Research agency. It is lawfair but we try to pull the curtain back better now. And expose the kremlins activities to sunlight and sunlight is the best effectiveness in this case, looking at the new generation warfare in this aspect of it and many call cyberenable Information Warfare against us which is part of the Overall Campaign of political subversion. One of the things i keep coming back to, the us remaining as the fall superpower on the planet. And the sole superpower was wrong, and and the tribunes and others and pro councils and councils all at each others throat and their minds of the entire empire. Any worries about our empire . Guest i wouldnt use the word empire but the free world overall, what you are seeing these days, much higher degree of international cooperation. When you look at the reaction of recent aggression by the Chinese Communist party and how that brought together india, australia, japan and the United States, with more partners, and the relationship with the eu and eu countries, the uk, is getting stronger as well. If we Work Together especially from an economic perspective, japan, the eu and the us cooperate together it will be tough to beat and that is the best shot at convincing our adversaries they can accomplish enough of what they want without doing it at our expense and the expense of future generations. Host i will stick around a little bit. The vision that you used, great quote. If you know your enemy and you know yourself you need not hear the result of 100 battles, if you know yourself about the enemy for every victory gained you will suffer defeat. So we do know russia and they were defeated by us. We didnt know vietnam. This was the topic of the previous book. Host do we know china . Guest we are learning more about china. We have a narcissistic view of china, how we would like china to be and we can change china. If we welcome china to the International Community they will play by the rules, change their form of government but that wasnt the case. We underestimated the degree that emotion drives the constraints of the Chinese Communist party. They are anything but monolithic or homogeneous. Between the Chinese People broadly and the Chinese Communist party which is a small percentage. Host the 15 largest cities of china, lots of activities there, but hundreds of thousands of american organizations and others working in china, working with the people, not so much with the government but working with the people and the economy. Do we know iran . Guest i dont think so. Iran has missed two big aspects of understanding the behavior of the iranian regime. The ideology of the machine and the revolution and who is in charge. Republicans and revolutionaries won out. The guardian council. And how they viewed the world. It was interesting how you brought in that angle. Host this is an element of this. Guest this is a theocratic dictatorship. Iran has been fighting a proxy war for four decades. We focus on a discrete issue or syria, the nuclear program. It was important to understand this holistic way and put together for policy and strategy, the challenge. Host your much like him. A general, a writer, a lot to bear. My son ryan was in afghanistan 6 or 7 times on nation building projects working on projects with the us agency for International Development while combat operations were still going on around the country and i remember him telling me how difficult it was to have the military and the civilians all working together in the art of nationbuilding and he told me story after story of complexity, the gps locator, wasnt in a military unit but a civilian in the field and so what about nationbuilding . We go in and eliminate the taliban threat through combat arms, become engaged in a more successful way than all the british attempts in the same groups over time but weve not build a nation. What is your thing about that part of what we do when we undertake these projects . Have to be people of that nation who build a nation and often times we go in and bring too much of ourselves. In the case of afghanistan we neglected this important task of consolidating military and sustainable outcomes and after that, we realized it and dumped too much money and resources beyond the capacity of the country and did it in a way that was not sensitive to the traditions and history and culture of afghanistan. Host all the things you mentioned are knowable. The military there to protect, defend and defeat the enemy, protect our assets, protect our interests, defend our interests and defeat the enemy. That is the purpose of the military, working with others, at the same time as you wrote about, successful by anywhere near the level of investment, they didnt produce the kind of results so is there some other way to do this . Guest the way to do it is make sure next time we dont go in under the illusion the war can be fast, cheap, efficient and leave on a high note. And an play a withdrawal, doesnt mean turning afghanistan into denmark. Trying to capture a particular person. One last quick question. Your quote of general alexander was the greatest transfer, not really, just food for thought, how do you defend that . We will set that aside, you keep it strategically important, why is it strategically important, move the American Energy economy away from that region, increasingly, others are investing in new future economies so all kinds of things in quick form, wire they strategically important . Guest the problems that originate in the middle east dont stay in the middle east. It involves jihadist terrorist organizations, sectarian civil war and what that war does, when most people a cycle of ignorance, hatred and violence and that sectarian conflict is perpetuating evidence. Host in that part of the world they want to go to college. Guest that is easy. To foment hatred, hatred of the other and use it to justify violence against innocence. That cycle has to be broken. To destabilize, that is the threat. The greatest victims of jihadist terrorists are fellow muslims. Determines to commit mass murder on our territory and elsewhere as the principal tactic, these organizations are more dangerous today than on september 10th, 2001. This has a lot to do than orders of magnitude larger, the mujahedin arrow alumni of resistance to soviet occupation of afghanistan, and various groups, orders of magnitude larger. And the most restrictive weapons on earth. And to gain the strength, to threaten us again, bring in and one, a scientific way of warfare. What is required is a holistic approach, apprehend their environment in profound increments. That is a profound thing to understand, an open system, the notion of understanding open systems come you cant isolate these things and cut it off and hope it will small it. How do we design a National Defense system including military and other things. Religious, social, military, all kinds of things, where would you start . To make that happen . You have to start at the National Level and understand the consequences. Intellectual to a certain extent. And then understand better how to operate together and apply these capabilities freedom talk about diplomatic efforts, Law Enforcement, Financial Action economic action it can be done. It can be done if these teams of Civil Servants but also drawing on academia and the private sector come together around these problem sets. Stomach that doesnt seem to be easily implemented yet. Another military is trying through a number of new initiatives, things related to new kinds of warfare, new kinds of conceptualization. Army, future command of the things that are ongoing. You are part of us conceptualizing these things. How do you allow the military to keep its due core, the discipline and its culture and yet at the same time open that culture and engagement to others . I think a way to do it is education. I received this tremendous gift in the middle of my career, right after Operation Desert Storm i got to go to graduate school in North Carolina obtain a degree of history to teach history. This is the Adult Education model, michael and the military. We have it already re have formidable experiences as a young person. And then you get educational expense allows you to reflect on your experiences and prepare for future responsibilities. And to learn about life, about this case for me military history. Which i felt was quite relevant to my career. Stomach that may be that flag officers and senior Field Grade Officers in the American Military are the most educated , most acutely both trained and educated individuals in our entire society. And then outside of the military though, the awareness of the military military culture goes down really quickly. There is a disconnect i think that we need to figure out how to solve that. How would you sell that . Stupid to think we have to allow people to move more fluidly and easily between the private sector the military, the Public Sector and academia. We have to come up with personnel policies and make that super easy to do. If someone was to contribute with a certain expertise, to Government Agency of some kind, we ought to be able to welcome them in and allow them to move back and forth. This is why i think the reserve model as driven placement there a lot of people made lieutenant commanders in the navy because of their expertise in civilian life. They were brought in as part of the teams. They made step happen across all dimensionalitys of world war ii but we dont do that anymore priest back absolutely. The ceo of General Motors ran the industrial mobilization effort in world war ii for example. So i think we have to do it. Really what we see now are these threats you mentioned new generation warfare. But i described others of these pernicious threats. They operate not just against our military, not just against our government they operate against dark private sector you see it in academia as well. I think we all have to be better educated for thats what i wrote the book as i hope it will help people understand better the challenges that we face. I think it does a great job doing that. The last question before returning back over to cole, you got your mcmaster for resolutions in here. When the nfc must deliver option lt for National Security challenges. To you got to understand more of the nature the problem themselves. Three, and eat all government involved not just the military. And four, no linearity assumed quantum forces thats by word quantum forces things are happening. The difficult logic. These four resolutions to me being trained way i am traded the way i work they make perfect sense. And so then i apply this to covid. And im like we did not do any of them, not one of them related to covid. I had to conclude in amassing this question in all sincerity i have to assume somebody decided that global pandemics are not a National Security threat. When of course they are. Subject this is the difference between planning and implementation and execution, right . Weve got a beautiful plan. But if you cant implemented its not going to be effective. In of the seven pieces during the army growing up, sure. Proper prior planning performance. Beckley understood i think what it would take. We being the u. S. Government across multiple administration start with george w. Bush. Had foresight on this by the wa way. He read a historical account of 1910 pandemic. This is after 911. He said hey we have a big potential problem here we need to get after this. I saw the speech he gave the outlet all the things we should do. Thats floating around these days because we didnt do any of those. What we did and that we forgot. And also what we did is we compromise the efficiency for effectiveness. One of the biggest problems was how we prioritized efficiency in the supply chains over what would be necessary to respond to this. Its a with ppe in the pharmaceuticals. With supply chains that were fragile, they were overreliance on china. And we did not stockpile what we needed. Because over time, will probably do this again i hope we dont. After this pandemic hopefully will not forget the lessons of this. Think the picture is good. I think the picture is fantastic. I think the book is a straightforward, honest assessment of where we are. I think your prescriptions, this notion of a scientific way of warfare, breaking the cycle, resolutions for the National Security council these are very significant contributions. One last final question, what is strategic empathy . Strategic empathy is the ability to view these complex challenges, opportunities from the perspective of the other. Including the adversary. Especially the adversary the rivals the enemies but it is the antidote of strategic narcissism which is the tendency to assume, or at least we decide not to do decides the outcome. And to in Wishful Thinking of selfdelusion. So theres a great historian named zachary sure i recommend his book. He wrote a book called the sense of the enemy and which he introduced this. I think its immensely important. As you mentioned already none of these challenges are conducive towards linear progress. There is continuous interaction with many other actors very complex environments. As a need an overarching policy and strategy. But that strategy has to be flexible implementation and execution. I remember, did read your book about vietnam. I was trapped in maine a few summers ago and ended up reading a book that happened to be on the bookshelf of this house that my wifes family owns. As an army history book they mustve bought at some yard sale or something that was written by an Army Historian during the vietnam war. It was nothing but his life remember the Army Historian at the end of the book said ho chi minh is a rough equivalent of George Washington in the sense of the revolutionary general. Lots of differences and so forth and so on. At the end of the book he said we dont understand these people we do not understand who this person is. We dont understand anything about what we are involved in. You can see its like army report 99 66. And i just have to read it. I remember being profoundly affected by the notion of our lack of understanding. This lack of strategic empathy. Some really glad youre able to bring that out, i appreciate that. So cold, dont know what we do next for you to open up to the floor for questions or not . But general thank you very much great book, great to have a chance to talk with you. I appreciate all that youve done. Thank you. What a privilege it is to be with you thank you so much. we opening it up to questions . To me to it keep going . Ive got all of this to go off of. [laughter] stomach general mcmaster thank you so much for joining us. So we do have some user submitted questions. Doctor corrodes up to you you can either keep going with questions that you have or we can scroll through and look at some of the ones that are submitted from her audience. Those are, im looking at some of those. Right now let me take a quick look. Youve got people greeting you and hawaiians thats very good. A lot of these questions, think you should get all of these questions. Heres one i think youve already addressed a little bit. So we are sitting here and china is moving forward, two global economies are emerging. There intricately tied to each other whether we like it or not. Its like were playing a hockey game with no rules. The chinese are like to check the americans without any penalty theres no penalty box et cetera. So if you had three things that you could do, drawing from a question here there are three things you could do relative to china were just dark . I think first i would start off on their economic aggression and Work Together as we are but a stepup this effort. Which demand reciprocity. Reciprocity in connection with access to the Chinese Market to our market. And that also reciprocity in connection with the listing on our exchanges. Think in general we should treat china like any other country and demand the same kind of standards. Actually make good on the promise when they are the wto which is to play by the rules. The second would be to strengthen military partnerships across the endo pacific to assure that china is unable to use this combination of corruption and coercion and gauging the largest landgrab in history. For example the south china seas there is military connection to it as well. But the third thing i would recommend is more introspective. Lets make ourselves better. Lets take advantage of our competitive advantages. In the chapter datagrams essentially argued that we should turn with the Chinese Communist party used as weaknesses into our greatest strengths. This to be freedom of expression, freedom of the press were to be a free market instead of a state driven economic system. It is our rule of law instead of the rule of a single party. And it strengthening democratic processes in a meaningful way. The way the senator, john mccain advocated for his entire career. I dont think that anybody is predisposed to not wanting a say in how their government runs. For example. That does not mean we should go around with democracy but those were willing to help themselves, who want to reform i think we and the rest of the free world should support those efforts. Speak if senator mccain, ambassador marguerite is the new director of the institute and asked what are you most proud of from your days at the nsa . I most proud of the shift in china. I think overall we did but this process in place that you really summarized, view them from the lens of our interests. But really to make implicit assumptions that often underpin our policies and strategies and challenge them. That is what we did with china. I think we implemented what is a bipartisan i hope it will be a bipartisan non partisanship from this cooperation of engagement to recognition we have two competes. We have to reenter from which we have been absent. So, one of the questions im going to sort of modify a little bit that was sent in, so as you suggested, president bush bush focus on the risk of the pandemic for this is the third corona in 20 years. The first two were less contagious more deadly this one is very deadly less contagious but more impactful. We had a bullet in the military the United States was heavily involved, asu was involved in the bull experiences. Yet for the reasons you suggest we werent ready. This is not the last pandemic. There will be a pandemic now within every five to ten years cycle is probable. Because of the bio complexity of the planet. So you cant go through this again. How do we ensure that we learn something it sticks. And whoever happens to be elected president of the United States and im not commenting on the present president. The office they cant say nevermind i dont believe in any of this. How do you do that . Switch to first of all you have to actually study this most recent experience, the shortcomings in our response and really learn from them. Ive been so disappointed in how partisan this issue has become. I asked for volunteers from students at stanford. We engage in a study over several months now that we are going to roll out about a week from now. Which are Lessons Learned in the Covenant Team pandemic bird and what we can do that my niece might be one of the students first met she is actually. [laughter] shes doing a great job on this task force. The method we use is pretty simple. We just interviewed people across the public and private sector had an essential role in responding to the pandemic and say what went well, what went wrong . Would you recommend and synthesize those perspectives into this report. And we run all of the politics out of this. I think what weve done is weve validated reading three key tasks. Its best to stop the pandemic forts starts at its origin. Thank you chinese comet is part of it cannot do that on this one paint meeting better global surveillance and response to contain it. This second dish up to mobilize a biometric goal response per dimension supply chain, other impediments we could not mobilize us quickly. The number one reason we code it is ineffective coordination, integration, sharing of authoritative data between departments of the federal government, between levels of government because we are in the federal system. Which republican private sectors because we have this hybrid healthcare system. Thats number one headliner. The third aspect is innovation. Biomedical innovation for therapies and for vaccines but i think were going to come out okay on that. Transmit investment across many years in that area. You are seeing that now. This is from the u. S. Government, the gates foundation, others who have contributed. Asu weve had funding from denture, barter, or building a pointofcare sampling advice you spit into a micro fluid device tells you without you have coronavirus or not, covid or not. I communicated with yourself own immediately. Or nearly immediately but working on things like that. All is a function of infrastructure of scientific investment weve got. So cold how we doing for time . Were good we have about 15 minutes left if you want to fill that time however you want. So, heres a tough question. Im asking you this is a formal general officer on the role of the military politics and so forth. One of the listeners asked, we have a selection the president says im not leaving. Snippet dont get to say that. No whats brilliant, our founders were brilliant, right . They were brilliant but they were flawed or public associate to work in progress. But at our founding they all asked each other hey what is the worst thing that could happen . Many of them had lived in or their parents or grandparents had lived through the blood wars of the 17th century in englan england. George washingtons grandparents fled the english civil war. Had pretty much in his mayan man on horseback, Oliver Cromwell who would undo our democracy. They also had in mind the danger of factions. We have Political Parties now pretend partisan weve become and how that could lead to violence and division in our society. One way to make sure democracy could survive is to separate the powers spread the executive branch has no say in the secession of government. Its only the congress and the judiciary who has a say. So i am not worried about this. Im people speculate on the role of the military that is damaging in and of itself. All of us have a responsibility to keep that bold light in place between the military and our government, right . Nobody elects a general stare not accountable to the people in our system. So its very important to maintain some control the military brings all support for politicians on both sides not to try to drag the military departs of politics. What bothers me these days are these dueling riffs of admirals and generals. I got these guys and gals signed up for me look my list is longe longer. I respect the right of those retired flag officers to sign up or do it ever they want, say whatever they want. But i think they have to recognize that could come with a cost. Serving our military should be rewarding, challenging, fulfilling for you no matter what Political Party or from. Nobody cares. When youre fighting in combat youre not look in the manner woman next and say whats the color of your skin whats a religion . Whats her Political Party . You are all in it together. You respect each other you are bound together by mutual trust and respect. When you become a family. You become a family where the manner woman next will give anything including their own lives for you. You have to remember that as americans. Al qaeda did not attack republicans or democrats they attacked americans. I think we are becoming so divided from each other to encumber it on all of us to have the ability to convene people but this just in our family come in our community, and university to come together and restore confidence in who we are as a people. What we can agree on maybe before we talk about what we disagree on. So check in from afghanistan he is asking you your views about the peace accord with the taliban. When i read about the peace accords with the taliban i remember reading in churchills diaries his first engagement actually in combat was on the board and then india now pakistan and afghanistan. When he talked about in terms of the nature of the tribal warfare there and other things going on in that part of the world. Im so very, very complex. The question is do you think the taliban and their regional allies, including pakistan which you write about significantly in the book are sincere in their commitment and they will cut ties with al qaeda and other terrorists groups . And can we get broader in a sense of positive evolution in the region . You think were moving in the right direction . Absolutely not been think what doing is an utter disaster. We in the Afghan People have to pay a much higher price as a result. This is the ultimate, we created the enemy we conjured the enemy we wanted. Instead of the enemy that really exists. There is no lien and im sure he knows as well. The south of the country i imagine he understands the evolution tell bob the world they inflicted on the Afghan People from 1996 to 2001. People dont want this. Do we have partnered with the small minority of really i think odious people who have inflicted great harm on humanity by sponsoring al qaeda. But they ruled themselves, right question if these are people who do not acknowledge any human rights. Especially womens rights. The question what is it look like its at mass executions in the soccer stadium every other saturday . I think we made a tremendous mistake and really what appears to be parting with the taliban against the afghan government. June with the talbot negotiators are saying to the afghan negotiators right now . Theyre saying hey we beat the worlds greatest superpower who are you to negotiate with us . You have nothing to bring to the table. They are trying to dictate term terms. And of course al qaeda and the taliban are completely intertwined. I could go on about it. Its in the book. All this is in the book. Its very frustrating to me michael. I think this is the perfect example of strategic narcissism at work. So segment late was a reporter has written in and has asked, do you think north korea will show some sort of bullying here before the u. S. President ial election to influence the election . Blink being some sort of mission while missile action threats target threats, japanese intimidation whatever you want to call it. Tickets more likely after the election. I think what he wants is to get back to the failed cycle of previous efforts to keep nuclear eyes. That cycle is a big provocation. With a missile test. And then we clamber hey can we talk to, can we talk to you in north korea baines indifference but then extorts payoffs. Payoffs in the form of reduced sanctions. But directs payoffs to the regime just for the privilege of talking with them. There is a long drawn out often frosting negotiation that results in a week treatment that locks in the status quo doesnt really change anything. Norman set north korea up to break that agreement and repeat that cycle. Okay lets not do that is what we should resolve to do. But i think after the election there will likely be a provocation. Much like in 2016 to 2017 there is a. A very high activity for the north korean regime. I think its an immensely important issue for its not going away. I think that question to what is the regime getting more fragile now . He apologized to south korea which is something unusual. He has been disappearing for weeks at a time. We think maybe covid19 has been the best mechanism to enforce u. S. Security council sanctions. And also there is a new class emerging. A class of sort of a emerging middle class from this corrupt authoritarian system it was more to lose and they have had in the past. But of course this is the worlds only prorated terry communistic ship. They provide productions of their collapse for many decades. A strange artifact, a 70yearold war. In fact at the world war ii artifact unresolved. So have not talked at all about africa. Maybe well make this the last thing we focus on. I was in africa last year played one of the places i was in ghan ghana, was it accra, upcountry in kumasi and other parts of ghana, working on different projects we have going on there. What i noticed, unbelievably was everywhere i went. I walked into very impoverished communities, no sewage treatments, but there were soccer fields and field hockey and all kinds of other sports. And every single kid i saw was wearing chinese uniforms that have been bought by some local Chinese Business with chinese mandarin lettering on the african team. This is an englishspeaking african country with unbelievable investments down at the level of micro businesses micro lending. So in other parts of the world i have been in other parts of africa it is the same thing. And its like we are there, we are working at university level. We are doing projects, making things happen. Thats about it. I did not see a lot of other american influences there. Seventy think about africa with a billion people in unbelievable economic potential, security threats, my son has also been in nigeria and also in the congo working on projects where american interests are being advanced. What is your thought about africa . I think we decided not to take the comprehensive approach the chinese has taken which is economic, financial, cultural all aspects. We are sort of other than that. So what is your thinking about africa make this the final question parts has massive amount of forces into africa. In retrospect African People on their terms. It comes with tremendous promise with the youth population that if given the opportunity with education and with Economic Growth and opportunity could be incredibly productive for the world. Its also very dangerous there as well. I think china exacerbates those dangers. Especially with authoritarian regimes that stifle the freedom and the say of people on the congo. I think zimbabwe is the poster child to that in connection with china exporting its models with all authoritarian regime. An to invest in africa in large member for extractive reasons. China needs to fuel its economy. Needs to dominate advanced manufacturing in the emerging data economy and global economy. And to do it, i think it many cases at the expense of others. The mention nigeria recently passed a resolution against chinese influence there. And i think theres a big aspect of this that has to do with the interconnected issues of energy, environment, climate change, Health Security and water security. Whip to look at these interconnected problems yet as interconnected. And we have to work with African Leaders with the african private sector to help the continent succeed. Because if we dont, all of those problems dont respect borders, right . We are seeing is china talks a good game for example on the environment. But they are building 50 to 70 coalfired plants a year. African example is kenya the building buyer plant that is the biggest carbon emitter right next to an american site. I think you have to call at that activity. But we have to part of the solution as well. We ought to be advocating for bridge into renewals. We should be fostering the broad range of solutions that are required to address the Food Security and food and water supply chain and so forth. Theres a lot we could do. Africa is a big continent, you can get lost there. Investments issue identified anecdotally are massive. And there largely i think aimed at building these relationships. Some journalists on the continent are now calling the new form of colonialism. I think our position should be less not compete with china dollar for dollar were not going do that anyway. The vast majority of our investments are in the private sector investments. I think taking the approach that investor mark reed on subsequent session by his vision for reinventing u. S. To eight has tremendous potential. And i think needs to be implemented across multiple administrations to have effectively envisioned when he was the director of the usa paid hr its a great book. I dont have welds doing doing hope is doing very well. I think it is provocative in the sense you have been affected by the stanford design logic. You are a number of design pathways. So thanks for the chance to talk a little bit about the book. I look forward to continuing our discussions on other things. Thank you for kicked connecting up with the Mccain Institute help us have these kind of discussions get out as many people as possible. Thanks for being a prick coal i dont what we need to do to sign off. Anything you like to say finally at the end here hr . Thank you for being with you its great work you do and with the Mccain Institute as well. Thanks you and mark my friend, thanks. Symmetrical up to you. Dr. Kroes, general mcmaster thank you for joining us. And everyone in our audience, thank you for joining us as wel well. Our next session of our Book Talk Series will be on tuesday october 20 with mark salter talk about his note book the luckiest man alike with john mccain to be moderated by senator joe lieberman. Thank you again very much for joining us with this. Current think slot coal. Thank you hr. Spent on her Author Interview program after words democratic senator chris murphy of connecticut was interviewed by counsel in criminal justi senior fellow thomas app about his n book the violence inside us. This portion of the program senator murphy elains why america became a more violent country than oers around the world. We are clearly an outlier when it comes to the homicide rate. In the boo talks about the fact that has n always been the cas in the United States. In fact, for much of americas early history, we wereot a global outlier. It wasot until the middle 1800s in which americas homicide rate started to diverge from the rest of the world. And it never came back to the ground. We have been a global outlier now for 150 years. There two things yourwo things explain expansion in the United States with the invention of the theres compels us to give me violence to order society. Amera very ely on he came to the use of violence but it was a normal mechanism to organize our economynd half of the nation. It was also usedn high numbers in the north for the same reason for similar reasons. In violence just came normalized. The second thing that happens in the middle 1800s as first wave of new immigrants to the United States. It is tse new immigrants fighting for econoc space that also begins to expand the rates of violenc and then, i say two things is really a third thing that happened in the midd 1800s. And that is the invention of self repeating handgun. A handgun that can besed without reloading every single time and be concealed in your pockets. The United States did not have any history of regulation. Those guns very quickly sead throughout the United States. Theyere romanticized by the people whoere sling them in these sort of three things the expansion of gun ownership , the greater sort of ability to he and conceal weapons, the entran of migrant groups fighting for space and the normalization of violence that came out o americas expansion of the slave population all start to move the rates of violence and the rate of gun homicides in a dramatic upward direction that america essentially never recovered from paid you can watch the rest of this program at our website booktv. Org. Click on the after words tap to find this and all other episodes of the program. [background noises]