Admiral carl schultz, u. S. Coast guard. Very good to have you here. Lieutenant general jeffrey rockwell, good to have you with us. General norman lewis, don of joint forces staff college. General carl robinson, air force, done of the Dwight D Eisenhower school. Rear admiral larry jackson, director for center of joint strategic logistics. Rear admiral Michael Brown is with us this evening. Susan eisenhower, we cannot forget miss Priscilla Roberts and ambassador walter stadler. I am sure there are many of you i have not mentioned. It is a pleasure to have you with us. As you know, the National Defense university is the worlds premier institute for studies in National Defense and International Security strategy. At the National Defense university foundation, we are focused on two things. Ensuring we train and educate our Security Leaders to prevent conflict when possible and wi n decisively when necessary. Tonights event is bringing together the foremost thought leaders in National Security and addressing the most, but issued facing our nation today. Mark rsday will landed on a 50 mile stretch of beach is along the heavily fortified coast of the normandy coast. Overlord,operation the dday invasion was one of the largest amphibious military assaults in history with 6939 ships. We have 289 today. In our navy. 6939 ships. And lending vessels. 2395 aircraft. 867 gliders on that particular day. The planning of the invasion to years. Tonight, we are pleased to be joined by Priscilla Roberts, widow of Major General milner roberts who landed on omaha beach june 6, 1944. Thank you very much for being here again. We were also we are also grateful to ms. Roberts for donation of artifacts on view here this evening. By late august 1944, all of the northern france has been liberated. By the following spring, the allies had defeated the dermis. Normandy landings had been called the beginning of the end of the war in europe. Let me introduce our distinguished panelist this evening. Is, thoseames stavrid of you who do not you have not been awake the last 15 years do not know who he is. He served as the 12th dean of the Fletcher School of law and diplomacy at tufts university. In the retired four star u. S. Navy. He was supreme allied commander with responsibility for afghanistan, libya, the balkans, and cybersecurity. A small undertaking. Commander for as all military operations in latin america. Avridis has more than 50 metals. He commanded the top ship of the atlantic fleet, winning the bet bird cup and a squadron of destroyers. For vicehe was vetted president by Hillary Clinton and invited to trump tower to discuss a cabinet position in the trumpet administration. In the trump administration. He and his phd in International Relations and his ma in law and diplomacy from tough university. He graduated from the u. S. Naval academy in annapolis. He was at the top of his class. He was the chair of the board at the u. S. Naval institute, the chair of the board of counselors at laguardia associates, a monthly columnist for Time Magazine and chief International Security analysis for nbc. I could go on, but we do not have enough time. , tweeded Roosevelt Roosevelt was chairman of the roosevelt china incorporation. He is a member of one of the oldest and most respected families of the United States, one that has a had a tradition of producing leading public figures including two american president s. Theodore roosevelt and frank and delano roosevelt. During the clinton administration, mr. Roosevelt received the medal of honor. Highested States Military honor on behalf of president Theodore Roosevelt. Bill clinton presented the metal during a ceremony in there was about room, which is next to the oval office. Mr. Roosevelt is the principal trustee of the roosevelt trust and extensive experience in directing the management of public and private portfolios. He is also the president of the Theodore Roosevelt association. He has taught at columbia university. He has taught at harvard. And other colleges around the country. He holds a ba from harvard college, an mba from columbia university, and a doctorate in human letters as well. 30 go. There are two very impressive panelist did with that said, we will sit down and have a conversation. At the end of the conversation, i will us for any questions the audience may have. If you would please join me in welcoming our panelists. [applause] admiral, as we sit here at the National War College and have many students present, we can learn from Operation Overlord and specifically, military strategy, can you give us a little bit of insight on what you learned while you were here and how that applies today . Host i can im a proudridis graduate of the were college. I slept through lectures better through this one is going to be. Lets think about Operation Overlord. Lets reflect on Susan Eisenhowers comments. There are three big takeaways from overlord that really apply today. First is the value of strategic thinking. Had a multiplicity of choices ahead of them. To forget we tend this, the big flick was opening a second front while stalin was pressing from the east. This was really the big muscle. It was great to liberated paris, these landings were crucial. This was a strategic move to put germany in a two front war. That is important to remember opened therd strategic gateway. Second, and you will permit me this latitude as a naval officer. The ocean matters. The sea matters. It is the maritime that gives you that flexibility to operate, to choose, am i going here or there . To move forces. All of that falls out from the command of the sea. That is a crucial theme we see again and again in world history. Overlord was a maritime operation. The gate. F opening we talk about overlord. Neptune that was the landing itself. All of the heroics that came afterward are crucial, but without the sea, without operation neptune, we never would have had overlord and the ability to drive at the heart of germany. The oceans matter. Here, i will reflect on the fact that i was privileged to be at the 50th anniversary of dday as a young ship commander. I was captured of u. S. Has better i was captain of u. S. Has barry. Still fromwas norfolk, go to portsmouth was sale from norfolk, go to part of an be international passing review on june 5, 1994 in front of her majesty who is still with us. After we passed in front along with all the ships of all of the allied nations, we sailed across the channel that night. Junewn, on the sixth of 1994, 50 years after, my ship had the honor of being the backdrop of omaha beach. I mentioned that in the context of the third thing to remember. Third thing to remember is the unbroken chain of soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines and coast guardsmen who were so integral to that. That unbroken chain goes back before dday and continues to this day. Whenever i think of this extraordinary operation, i think ,f the young men and some women in todays military, many men and many women who were part of the chain that protects us. Think,re the thoughts i to my mind when i think of overlord. Here is your question. Had aosevelt family has strong tradition not only in the military, but also as serving as leaders. Can you talk to that history . Tweed roosevelt sure. First, i am honored to be here. I think pretty much everyone at this audience knows more than i do. At least im safe on the family. I learned a long time ago that if i Say Something that does not sound right, i just say, in the family, we say this. We usually win that way. Speaking of the family, on a personal note, i find when i meet people all the time, it became clear to me that people thought in our family, we did nothing but talk about tr. We never talked about tr. I hardly remember anyone talking about tr. We talk about the thick the same thing everyone talked about. His aunt mabel o going to get married . How many children is joan going to have . Things like that. She already has six. It just does not happen. In any case, i have learned. Thanks. oursked me to talk about family contribution. Im a little bit embarrassed about this. I do not want to sound like im bragging about our family. It is no different than any other family. Every family in the country contributed to the landing at normandy. Out as saying i have been asked this question, so i will answer it i do not want to sound like we are somehow we were lucky enough to be any places where we could contribute a great deal. Like any other family, everybody counts. Hereoosevelt first came somewhere around 1640. We have participated in every war this country has fought. We started out in the indian wars. Signingre roads about the indian wars. Certainly roosevelt in the revolution. Named Isaac Roosevelt was called isaac the patriot and played quite a big role. We had ordinary soldiers and every thing else. The civil war for example. A number of roosevelt fought. Famously, trs father did not. Tr was so theory that bellicose that he was trying to make up for the fact that his father did not fight. His father played a major contribution. The reason his father did not join the fighting forces was because he was on he was married to an unreconstructed southerner. His wife was from georgia. He did not want to be fighting her brothers. He did not just sit out the war. Idea, theythis called it the allotment program. This idea that the soldiers in the field, obviously the union soldiers, were paid basically with cash on the field. The tendency was suspended as soldiers have done was to spend it as soldiers have done, gambling, women, booze. Remarried. Soldiers many of the soldiers were married. To spend a tendency all their money and not send any home. He thought this was something something had to be done. He created the allotment program, which was a sign up program were soldiers signed up to send a certain percentage of their salaries directly to their spouses, mothers. He spent the entire war going around from frontline camp to frontline camp signing people up. I do not think tr, the son, he was also theater roosevelt. It is very confusing. We have lots of Theodore Roosevelt. Case, he played a major role. He did it all for nothing. I think it was something to be proud of. If you go on that, you come to the spanishamerican war. The chargenows about up san juan hill. Importantly, tr, at the beginning of the work, was assistant secretary of the navy. Sayand ill have more to about his navy relations, but he was responsible for getting the navy ready for the war he saw was coming. Say, was im sorry to not nearly as well prepared. Which drove tr crazy. He carefully prepared for it. In minimal ways of making sure the food and whatever was located correctly. And in major strategic ways like ordering admiral dooley to take over and attack manoa, which he did. This will be a theme, he had a balanced approach between minutia and strategy. Work with ability to both. I will say more about that later. Lets see. We get to the Second World War. That is the subject of what we are talking about now. Trying to think of what role tr played in the Second World War is an interesting thought. We all know about fdr. He was commanderinchief at the time. We got that side cover. When you start thinking about tr and what he did in 1900 and the few years after that had a major effect on the work, i will mention some as we go forward, but there are various things that made a big difference. One of which was this whole andoach that tr champions got into the blood of our military of planning ahead, of being prepared. Citizenryonvince the they needed to be prepared for this. When you look at what he did in the first world war, trying to prepare the American People for the eventual what he thought was inevitable and correctly would be there involvement in the war, has followed along with many of our leadership, both in the military and outside. The importance of preparing yourselves and the people for war. Was his three sons. Lets go back to the first world war. In the first roadwork, tr contributed the first world war, tr contributed his first his sons to the effort. Three older were in big red one. The first division. The fourth, quentin, was a fly boy. He fought the germans on the front lines. But he lasted very long. He lasted a few weeks and was killed. My grandfather, archie, was wounded. He was wounded in the left like and left arm. It looked like he was going to die. He was on the operating table. They did not think he was going to make it. The french government got ether quickly and found hoping to get it to him before he died. They did not know my grandfather. He was a telephone guy. He was not going to he was a tough guy. He made it out. He survived. His two brothers also survived the war. Three of the four made it through. The Second World War, a whole different story. Fdr was commanderinchief. There has been a lot written about him. Im not going to talk about that so much. I thought i might tell you some of the other side of the story. I talk a little bit a while a little bit about what tr provided for them. The panama canal would not have happened without tr. Like kind of obvious, but the fact of the matter, it was not so much that he decided the panama canal needed to be built. The french had tried to build it and had been defeated. What defeated the french was yellow fever. It was perfectly clear to people who knew about disease that the threat to the actual completion of the canal depended upon solving the yellow fever problem. , inyellow fever problem those days, nobody knew about mosquitoes. They thought you got yellow fever because sewerage. Untrue. In cuba, there was a military doctor, i am trying term or his name. Do you remember . It was the other one. Audiencewould have an who knows farmer. I guess he was a colonel. He was a military doctor. He believed he read the latest literature. He knew mosquitoes for the problem. Nobody else wanted to believe it. Cleaning up the mosquitoes, which means getting wind of the standing water. Feverliminating yellow from havana. Completely eliminating it. Even that was not enough to convince most of the medical community and most of the military community. Panama, he was sent to nobody would support him. No one would do anything. He appealed to tr, this is typical tr. It is about how to think. And forced the military to take it to take the appropriate approaches. They did it. Yellow fever was eliminated. As a result, the panama canal came into a distance. I wish to that time here . About one minute. Let me talk about dday. There are lots of other roosevelt in the work, including my father. Ted, Theodore Roosevelt jr. , was on dday. The story is interesting. He was sick. He already had several minor heart attacks. He was sick. Believed we needed to have Senior Leadership on the beach on dday. Bradley. Ally convinced bradley convinced like that was necessary. Ike put out a tall put out a call for any generals willing to lend. There was a deafening silence. Uncle ted was the only one who volunteered. Heres this guy who was on a cane. He has had two heart attacks. He is a roosevelt. Lets let him go. As we heard, he landed on utah. He was probably the first soldier on the beach. The most conspicuous one because he spent he went in with his cane and a pistol with six bullets. That is all he had. Beach alln the directing everybody. How the germans did not kill them, who knows. How the spanish did not kill tr when he went up san juan hill. They were all dismounted cavalry men. Spanishd of sharpshooter it would not shoot the guy on the horse . Uncle ted was there. As it was mentioned, his son was on utah, i mean omaha. They were the only fatherson team. Uncle ted was the only general officer and the oldest person on the beach. Unfortunately, this basically tore him apart. He died shortly thereafter. Proud general patton once said, what is the bravest feet you ever saw . He said it was uncle ted on the beach. I always check up on that. I always choke up on that. ,e was given the medal of honor when tr cut his medal of honor, got his medal of honor, that is the second father and son team. You know the first one was . Macarthur. Of course you know. That is pretty good company to be in. Now i will shut up. Heroics,tion to which is clearly great leadership, what other factors were there, admiral, you and that impacted the success of normandy . Do we have those today . Admiral stavridis i am sure we have them in place today. To the theme i articulated earlier, i think these generations repeat themselves in American History. About thed of talking greatest generation. I think the world war ii generation was a great generation. I look at these Young Millenials in iraq and afghanistan, repetitive deployments. , they areing injuries a pretty great punch as well. A fully look at our general officers in the Second World War and we look at the leaders we have today, i think you do see these qualities repeat. Think aregs i consistent in a leadership perspective. I think Susan Eisenhower hit it. It is humility. Understanding that you can have the most beautiful plan in place, and you can have the most incredible people working for you, and you can have the best resources and the most powerful military and yet, factors will influence and change. You have to have the humility to understand that you are not bulletproof. That contact with the enemy will change the plan. I think general eisenhower realized that. He had real humility. You see that echoed today when you look at leaders like general dunford or john allen. General john allen in afghanistan. Many, many others. Humility is a very important quality in leaders. The second is creativity. The ability to turn the cube and look at it in a different way. Again, back to overlord, neptune, you saw, for example, the use of deception. The creativity in taking patton, this unguided weapon. The germans really focused on putting him in command of this ethical army from calais and deceiving the germans. That is an active real creativity. They went to the point of creating patches for each of the elements of this fictitious army. They made that stick. In extraordinary and clever ways. Is traditional military 101. It is determination. The ability to fight through the casualties. The fight through the naysayers. Optimism as a force multiplier. It is determination. It is determination that as a force multiplier. You saw that in the generation of leaders in the Second World War. We see that today in our leaders. Humility, creativity, determination. We have those three. With that said, we have been the dominant economic and military power for a long time. Are we the dominant military and economic power today and will we be in the future . Admiral stavridis all great powers pass through cycles. We see that again and again in human history. We are today engaged in a struggle. You think im about to say china. We are in a struggle with iran. Part of a problem in rationalizing our engagement themiran is we think of dominated the world. The persian empire controlled 60 of the worlds population, 2500 years ago. If you look at the outline of where the empire existed, you pushingy, modern iran in baghdad, in damascus, in lebanon, in the arabian peninsula, on the borders of india, into afghanistan. That empire faded. Echoes of it remain. Thus, we look at the roman empire. The british, we could go on and on. All imperial powers have a moment and then experience a time of decline. Today, weited states are seeing less a decline of american power, less than what we see as the rise around us. That brings us to china. The great story of the 21st century will be this relationship between the u. S. And china. How come thou, we do not know. We are at the beginning of it in a certain stage. Readof you will have destined for war. In america and china avoid the trap . He does not put a . At the end of that. I do not think we are destined for war. We are destined for a time of imperial competition in this 21st century. I would argue that for the United States as this unfolds, the greatest advantage we have, and this brings us back to dday, is that we operated at dday. We operate today with a global set of partners. Allies, partners, and friends. Three different things. We look at europe and nato, we look at nonnato european nations like sweden and finland. Japan, southia, korea, australia, new zealand, the philippines. These are treaty allies of the United States. That is before we get to Close Friends and partners. That global network, which served us well on the beaches of normandy, where 11 nations, a big number in those days came with us, will serve us well Going Forward in this 21st century. That is the principal advantage of why i remain cautiously optimistic about why the about the reach and influence of america in the 21st century. In a moment, i am going to aboutose about and creativity dr. Roosevelt about creativity. Im going to remind you next question is coming from the audience. You can think of your questions while we are asking this question. Ill start with Tweed Roosevelt i will start with another personal note. I am never flattered if people ask me if i knew Theodore Roosevelt. I got asked that this evening. Since he died in 1919 [laughter] meed roosevelt nobody asked nobody asked me that question. It is an interesting point you brought up. Admiral. Ith you, one does not think of Theodore Roosevelt as being humble. In a way, he was. It was not the way he presented did not but he knew he know everything. He spent a great deal of time taking into greed into weeds to get to know things. He is thought of as a guy who never stopped talking. That is kind of a roosevelt thing. [laughter] the fact is, he was an excellent listener. People remember the stories he told. He was an isolate listener. He believed in careful study of whatever he did. Lets talk about the navy. Was in college at harvard, he began writing his first book, which was a naval history of the word 12. Of 1812. Y of the war afterwards, he finished in the next couple of years. After a lot of careful study. He published it, it was an eyeopener to lots of people, including the navy. It was very well received. So well received that it was ordered in every Ships Library at the time. Not just the u. S. Also the royal navy carried it. It is still in print. I am sure it is in the library here. It is still on navy ships. Bethe time he got to assistant secretary of the navy, he already had a very deep knowledge. What he did not do was say, i know everything now. Element of humility. He spent a lot of time talking to all kinds of people in the navy about whatever subject interested him. Get really down into the weeds. Begin to think the larger picture about what needed to be done to improve gunnery he was a strategic thinker. He thought carefully. He saw opportunities other people did not see. Some are astonishingly ahead of his time. A couple of examples, there is a famous letter, which is, i do not know if it is the original copy. It is on the uss Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier. He wrote it while he was assistant terry of navy. This was before kitty hawk. He wrote this letter to various people in the navy, saying this is going to be important for the navy. We need to get to the ground floor and figure how we can use airplanes, which had not even invented yet, to extend the power. What he published his famous book, tr, who had Read Everything immediately, had read met my handweek and shortly thereafter. They bought into the whole theory of naval power. Extraordinary thing. He always kept thinking like that. Submarines have been around since the civil war. Not successfully. Most submariners did not make it much further than the dock. The first major effort to produce a submarine that could be functional and be useful whats in his time. He wanted to was in his time. He ordered the First Submarine or one of the First Submarines to come up outside of where he lived. His summer white house. Enough, it was called the plunger. That seems to me and odd name for a plunger. Anyway. It arrived. He wanted to go out to it. The secret service would not let him go because it was a stormy day. He commandeered a little boat ,nd rowed out to the summary pretty much frightening the captain. He demanded to not only take it down, but also drive it. When he came out of it, he said, this is dangerous. Notlways believed you do order anybody to do anything if you do not do it yourself. He ordered also mergeners get combat pay other they are in combat are not. They still are, are they . Summering pay. Tweed roosevelt summering pay. Right. He was submarine pay. Right. Just a quick one here. The whole relationship with japan, tr saw japan, most westerners had a very civilized, powerful dangerous nation. He worried, this was back in early 9000. He worried about hawaii and pearl harbor with the japanese. , first,oach to this was built up the navy. He built our navy and created what he called the great white fleet. He sent the great white fleet on a peace mission, and the main purpose was to show we had the power to do it. That was the first cruise of any full group of navy vessels. He did not threaten japan. He just showed his power. It turned out he was a terrific diplomat. He got the whole thing on an even keel. It is kind of too bad our government subsequently did not follow that lead. It wound up in disaster at pearl harbor. Thinking. Strategic to him, it was based on very careful knowledge and getting to understand things. Neededght the military that kind of education. He created the first higher Level Education for the military, which was the army were college and had this gorgeous strategically, and minuscule he. To have a place to do this. This best in the World Military education that takes place right in this building. And many other places. There are many who believe he is actually the guy who came up with the idea of the six Phase Campaign construct. Of course. Velt i will proudly agree with that. Questions from the audience . Sir. I would appreciate it if you would comment a little bit on the margin of success on the dday operation being a little dicey, being a little close. Maybe you could comment on what mistakes we actually did make, which you never hear about because of the overall success of the operation. I am not avridis remarkably deep historian with that kind of granular knowledge of the invasion itself. I will stipulate that at the beginning. I will give you a couple broad observations. Ofhink that the margin victory was indeed small. Wasut the numbers on it, it 156,000 troops attacking 50,000 germans. Clausewitz,o to offenses defense as three is to one. You are right on the bear margin of the number of troops. Say,r two, we had i would not a strategic surprise. I think we achieved tactical surprise, but barely. I think back to my earlier comment about the use of deception. I think that was a thin margin. If the germans had been able to know where we were coming ashore, it could have been a very different ending to the story. Because of the previous point i made about the relatively tight margin of attack. How it came out as the Overall Campaign when, i think it was an extremely bold stroke that was enabled by the thin margin. It was also the point i made earlier with captain parker. Up to men optimum force is a force multiplier. Eisenhower was sufficiently confident of his troops and the situation he was willing to put it on a thin margin. As im sure many here now, he actually wrote a press release that said, we have failed. I take full responsibility. I think that makes your point. He knew it was a close margin at the end of the day. The we actually did wrong that we may not have heard about . The things we actually did wrong that we may not have heard about yucca Tweed Roosevelt i do not have any insight admiral stavridis i do not have any insight to offer on that. A win is a win. Your questiondis answer your second question, which is the willingness to take risk could have gone very wrong on that day. But it did not. Thank you. Admiral stavridis thank you, sir. The way eisenhower when eisenhower was president , after the armistice in korea, not a single american servicemember died in combat. The other day at a Commencement Ceremony at one of our military academies, Vice President pence said, you will see combat, count on it. Wore become when did war become our natural condition . Are we asking too much of too few . You yourself mentioned how much smaller the navy is now than it was years ago. I think ifvridis you look at the threat of American History, combat has been a reoccurring path reoccurring pattern in our history as it has been in human history. Times the periods of when we have had moments of peace are relatively few in our history and relatively few in universal history. Let me give you some good news. I would recommend a book by stephen pinker, our better angels, which looks at in analytic and metric terms at the reduction and propensity reduction in propensity to go to work. To the question of eisenhower, i think it is interesting one. Water someone who knew intimately new war and knew war intimately throughout his career. He was determined to avoid that. Back to the question asked earlier, he was willing to take risk. He took risk in many circumstances, not engaging u. S. Troops. Headrticular, i recommend thomass book, eisenhowers bluff about the way he was able to effectively play bridge with his opponents with nuclear weapons. He was capable of doing that i think because of his extraordinary life and career and gravitas he brought to the office. A seems unlikely to me current president would have that kind of gravitas to bring to the equation. Yes,nclude, i would say, we are a nation that has been engaged in many wars in its history. Y of the have been tragic many of them have been tragic misadventures, no question. On the other hand, i think the long trend is a reduction in the enthusiasm with which we throw ourselves into wars. I would argue, coming out of this time of iraq and afghanistan, hopefully increasingly in the rearview mirror, i think there will be less of a tendency to leap forward. The. I would compare it to is not actually eisenhowers, it is the postvietnam era. If you look at the u. S. Coming out of vietnam in 1975, we really dont do significant combat again. I would like to add a point that is very interesting. Tr has been called a warmonger and other things. And yet his presidency was the only one in the 20th century where no u. S. Soldier fired a shot at anybody. Because how do this man that was managed toiented lead us through a very difficult time with our lots of opportunities for us to get to war. Had a they manage to not do it back oh it had a lot to do with his approach. Go toody thought we would war at the drop of a hat so we didnt want to start a war. But it is much more complicated than that. How hisore to do with people use diplomacy. War lookedapanese like it was going to turn into the first world war. , it was ant part interesting thing to think about. Our most bellicose president was indeed not. Some in the audience may not know. I think roosevelt would be down permanently in history. He has retired this record. He is a recipient of the medal of honor and won the Nobel Peace Prize for the diplomatic engagement. Nobody in American History is going to hit those marks again. And there is an idea of what america stands for on both sides. We should remember our founding president George Washington is thought to first in war and first in hearts of his countrymen. I think roosevelt carries that tradition forward. Will go to questions from the audience but we will look at world war ii and normandy. We want to ensure the russians didnt get too much of a foothold and overrun germany. Nato. S gets us to the first secretary general of nato said in shorthand that nato exists to keep the russians out in germans down and the americans in. If you take that is a Pretty Simple shorthand, i think nato still fulfills kind of those. Hree there is a tweaking in the transatlantic bridge. President trump has been somewhat negative about nato from time to time and i am confident understands the value of keeping the u. S. Engaged. I think we can determine russia from adventurism in estonia and nato countries. Willing to go to ukraine, moldova, georgia. Cross a natoot border in anger. In terms of germany, it is shorthand for further entry european conflicts. The greatest achievement in nato is probably not that no nation has attacked nato, but no nato nation has attacked another nato nation. Thats after 2000 years of europeans attacking each other. Nato has kind of kept the peace on that continent. I think we are actually in pretty good shape. We ought to nurse that and be of the fact that if we look at history and go back 100 years ago to the end of the first world war, someone needs to turned that off im going to have to leave. ,f we go back 100 years ago what did the u. S. Do daca do . And rejected the league of nations. We erected massive tariff and we decided we can bring it all home and do it all here in america. We broke the global economy. You can have a plum line to the greater pression Great Depression and another line to fascism. Lets look back 100 years ago at the rise of national socialism, mussolini, and italy. We have seen a lot worse. We ought to learn from that ,xperience, american engagement we keep the russians out. That is the right prescription to move forward. Mindful that it doesnt draft away from us. In withody was phoning a question. Sorry about the phone, it wasnt my wife. I am in 1991 graduate and delighted to be back. My father was wounded on dday. He was a combat glider pilot. His power ship got hit on the way in, so they cut him early. He carried second born artillery men, and a jeep. My father crashed into the hedgerow. 80 casualty rate. That is pretty amazing. He is buried in section 60, right smack in the middle of section 60 to arlington. I visited him today. Looked pretty good. He has Great Company with a great generation. I spent 46 years in the intelligence business and i try to think ahead. Tell me what nonnuclear warfare might look like in 2025 when we are faced with a regional problem precipitated by two major world powers. Both the chinese and the russians. What will warfare look like given the fact that 5g is ready to take over our computers and cell phones in the very near future . I think that you are right to point out the russia china confluence. We will be mindful of the way russia and china are growing closer together. We shouldnt overreact to it. I often say that Vladimir Putin is playing with fire in terms of bringing russia closer with china. Russia is a nation in decline. It is declining and mel maldistributed. To the east of the vast land area the size of the United States of america, it is essentially empty. There. Ion people live fewer than manhattan and the surrounding new york area. Of timber, is full water, gold, rare earth. China looks at that like my dog looks at a ribeye steak. It looks really good. Putin is playing with fire but he will play that card because he believes that is the best path to keep russia relevant Going Forward. Proposition your that we will see increased russian and chinese cooperation in global affairs. To answer the question, what will war look like . Youre correct to underline a conventional war. I think we can avoid a nuclear war. Instead of this traditional triadgic triad, a new will be unmanned vehicles. Surface, undersea, drones. Security driven by Machine Learning which is what leads to artificial intelligence. And third will be special forces. Potentially biologically enhanced individuals that are additive in those three zones. I believe the maritime dimension will continue to be vital because it produces the ability to move forces under and on the sea throughout the globe. Conflict, god help us if we get into it, but if it exists, it will be the south china sea. It will be maritime. It will have a significant cyber component. A significant unmanned component. And i believe a significant special forces component. It will play out if it has to in that zone. If it expands, it will expand and wee indian ocean need to avoid that because that is where nuclear engagement lies. Sir . Im going to try to get into for and because it is not realize my friend behind it was trying to ask a question. A little bit about what the national will was like during the fdr administration. 1941,ms that predecember it was very antiinterventionalists. And just after dday, if you would talk about how that national will works today. Were very isolationist before pearl harbor. Most americans do not want to do it again and did not want to have anything to do with it. Remembering. Worth fdr was tied by Public Opinion and the general politics of the day. Because fdrsting modeled his career on teddy roosevelt. He was the assistant secretary of the navy. Think theailor and i experience he found very useful. It played out in the Second World War because Winston Churchill was interested in the navy. And this was a bond between them, tr would address his private letters to Winston Churchill as an able person. Had fdr who was aware that the situation was extremely dangerous and the longer we waited, the more difficult it was going to be. Managed inll this be a know what wouldve happened of fraud or hadnt happened. Bondready at a very strong with Winston Churchill. We had a very special relationship with england. I am interested in what you think, but i suppose we would of gotten in any way. But i dont know how. To pick up your point, i think it is unclear. Think you correctly describe extreme countervailing forces in the country. Is interesting how a given moment can change everything. Im not a fan of alternate histories. If you want to scare yourself, read the novel by philipp deck or watch the men in the high castle and think about consequences. Today, i think if the u. S. Were a dog, it would be a golden retriever. It would be bounding through the world, the tail knocking things around. Basically a happy dog that is unmindful about its larger environment. And then when something bad happens, that dog could very quickly turn into a German Shepherd or a pitbull. Other nations need to be mindful of that. The national will today is roughly along those lines. Yet if something truly touches our national interest, we will become that German Shepherd. That is 9 11. That is what happened. Are we capable of that again . We are. Other nations would be wise to mind that. And we would be wise to ensure that we dont unnecessarily conduct that transformation. Example, it quickly turned around overnight. On that point up and and i know we need to conclude. Everywhere i have gone in my i have a the navy, beautiful painting of the uss maine that i have had for decades. And that was the catalyst that launched us into the spanishamerican war. Journalism drove us into that war which made Teddy Roosevelts career in some ways. There are a lot of ships in the navy. Whyd you keep a picture of the uss maine on your wall that blew up and sank . One of the enterprise, the Carrier Strike group. The answer is, i keep the picture on my wall because of that story. Know thatws up and we spanish terrorists blew up the main and we launch into the spanishamerican war. Except that 50 years later, when we salvage the main, we discover ambiguity, almost certainly that the main blew up because of an internal event. Explosion,iler heres the point. The reason i keep a picture of the man on the wall in my office is for two reasons. Becausehave a plan b your ship can blow up under your feet at any moment. My full throw those curves that you. 9 11, the uss maine, pearl harbor. Before you rush to judgment, becauseu launch a war you know in this case, spanish main,ists blew up the review the fact pattern. Dont make decisions in haste that will change everything. Those are pretty good lessons for life. Maines why i hang the uss on the wall in my office. Knowledge may of only be overtaken by your desire for dessert is going to be outside in just a moment. In thanking our two panelists that are gray conversationalist. Great conversationalists. [applause] these are the type of events that we do. Have the American Patriot award coming up and we have lots of other events coming up and we hope that you will join us. Join us for dessert and coffee outside. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] in 1979, a Small Network with an unusual name rolled out. Cspan open the door for washington policy, bringing you and filtered content from congress and beyond. Cspan isevision, your unfiltered view of government so that you can make up your own mind. June 6 was the anniversary of the invasion of nazi occupied france. A mobile talks about his experience parachuting into normandy after his plane was hit by enemy fire. Here is a preview. I had a good view of the german stronghold. Could find it and give them courage. And when we deliver that affect in the stronghold, the germans put down their weapons and came out with white flags. And i gave the command a ceasefire. Countermandedtown that order. And i argued with him. See. D look and and he repeated his command. Then the germans took up their weapons. 10 or 15 men overcame the strong point. How much resistance there would be in getting there. And my argument was that they could have fought another day. Watch the entire interview about the dday experience on oral histories. Its for our nations past here on American History tv. The stonewall riots began on june 28, 1969 after police raided the stonewall inn. The rate started six days of the raid sparked six days of protests, considered to be the catalyst for the modern lgbtq might rights movement. Panelists including eyewitness to the protests discuss the legacy of the riot and how the treatment of the community has changed over the last 50 years. The National Law Enforcement museum and washington, d. C. Hosted this event. It is my pleasure and honor to be back with you as we stream as well, we are looking back on 50 years. Where we were 50 years ago at the stonewall riots and how far we have come. At the changes that have been made and the changes still to come. I would like to introduce our panel if we can. Starting with david carter, the author of stonewall. And a film which won the peabody