Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20140403

Future of warfare. There has never been a Silver Bullet solution to war. You had the submarine. You had the southern. You about the bomber, the radar. You had the machine gun, the tank. We have to recognize our future adversaries are going to have some capabilities we have now and be able to disrupt what they perceive as our strengths. What are our answers to that . I think its a balance joint force who can play rock, paper, scissors with anybody. Rose Anders Fogh Rasmussen and h. R. Mcmaster when we continue. Theres a saying around here you stand behind what you say. Around here, we dont make excuses, we make commitments. And when you cant live up to them, you own up and make it right. Some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where its needed most. But i know youll still find it, when you know where to look. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose all 28 nato Foreign Ministers concluded a twoday meetinmeeting in brussels today. It is the first time the group has met since russias annexation of crimea. In response, nato has suspended all practical cooperation with russia. Has also ordered draft measures to strengthen its defenses and reassure numerous Eastern European arkansasalize. Joining me is Anders Fogh Rasmussen, natos secretary general. I am pleased to have him back on this program. Thank you very much, mr. Secretary general, its good to have you back. Youre welcome. Rose tell me what you mean when you say nato suspends all practical cooperation with russia and that it means certainly that no more business as usual . Would you elaborate . Yeah, we have decided to suspend all political and all military and civilian practical cooperation with russia as a response to russias illegal military action in ukraine. So it means that a number of cooperation projects, where we have coomented with russia, will now be suspended. Some of them will continue, but without participation of russia. Rose youre waiting for russia to withdraw froops from the ukraine border. When do you expect that to happen . Well oorkts difficult to speak about expectations here because we have seen a very determined russian action in crimea, but we urge russia to pull back its troops, to live up to her international obligations, and engage in a constructive dialogue with ukraine, sooner rather than later. Rose do you believe that the russians will withdraw troops from the border . Have they given you any indication they will . No indication whatsoever. We saw some media reports that the russians might have started withdrawal of some troops, but we have no information that can confirm this information. So what we are witnessing is a very massive Russian Military buildup along the ukrainian borders, and we have no indications that they have started withdrawal. Rose and so what else can nato do . Well, we are focused on the defense of our allies, collective defense is a core task for nato, and thats why we have decided to enhance our collective defense. We have enhanced air policing in the three baltic states. We have deployed socalled awacs aircrafts to improve surveillance over poland and romania. And you have also seen more naval presence in the black sea, and now we are exploring how we could possibly further strengthen collective defense. Rose and what might that include . That might include an update and further development of our defense plans. It might include enhanced exercises, and also appropriate deployments. Rose do you believe the russians are listening . I do believe they are listening. I think they have no doubt that nato allies are strongly determined to provide effective defense and protection of our allies. And that implies a deterrent effect in itself. Rose this comes at a time that there was some withdrawal from nato, some people even questioning its mission and the relevance. Do you think that this action by the russians will revitalize nato . No doubt that people in nato nations have seen now with their own eyes how important it is to have the worlds Strongest Military alliance to ensure effective defense and protection. You have seen people in estonia, latvia, lithuania, poland, and other of our newer Member States express gratitude that they actuaactually joined our alliane some years ago. Rose the president has said this is not the beginning of a cold war. The Russian Ambassador to the United Nations told me its not the beginning of a cold war. Do you believe it has somewhat possibility . I dont think we could or should think about a cold war because the cold war time was another era where we saw the soviet union leading a bloc of communist countries in the world. Thats not the case here. Actually, we see russia quite isolated. What we see, however, is what i would call old sovietstyle thinking in the kremlin. Rose in fact, you have said the crisis in ukraine is calling into question the very principles upon which we have built the modern europe. Yes, indeed, we have built a europe whole, free and at peace. A europe where each and every nation has the right to choose its own path, including alliance affiliation, and now russia has put into question that fundamental principle. We have seen russia redraw the european map by force, and we have also seen russia put into question the fundamental principle that each and every nation has an inherent right to choose its own Security Policies. Rose but im still unsure what happens if they do not move their troops back or if they take a more aggressive action in ukraine. If russia were to intervene further in ukraine, it would be an historic mistake. It would isolate russia further internationally. We have already seen russia quite isolated. Recently the United Nations General Assembly had a vote on the crimea question, and only 11 countries in the world supported the russian position. So russia is already now quite isolated. And if russia were to intervene further in ukraine, it would have grave copsquences for, consequences for russias relationship with what i would as a whole call the western world and that would also have a very negative Economic Impact on russia. Rose as you know, many people believe russia may respond and change the number of troops it has on the border. But few people believe that they will withdraw from crimea. Is that your position . Well, we will not recognize the annexation of crimea. Its illegal. Its illegitimate. Of course, facts will on the ground are that russia has occupied crimea, and also taken steps to include crimea in the russian federation. But the international comient will not recognize that illegal act. Rose you just had an extraordinary meeting with the 28 Foreign Ministers, the members of nato there in brussels. Is there a collective judgment about what president Vladimir Putin is up to . Yeah, i think his goal is quite clear. He wants to reestablish a russians fear of inference in the former soviet space. Thats what thats what it is about. Rose and will he get away with it . Well, i think in the long run, he will not because in the long run, you cant suppress the free will of people, and it is a basic right that each individual nation can choose its alliances and its Security Policies freely. It may be that russia can take steps as they have done in crimea, in the short run. But in the long run, you you cant suppress people that way, and thats actually the oldfashioned soviet style of thinking, and in the long run, he wont succeed. Rose do you believe a diplomatic solution is possible, and if it is, what would it include . Well, obviously, a political and diplomatic solution would include a recognition that crimea is still a part of ukraine, and if russia has concerns as regards the treatment of minorities in ukraine, there are numerous ways to address such concerns in a peaceful, political, and diplomatic manner. Rose mr. Secretary general, thank you so much. Its a pleasure to have i back on the broadcast, and i hope we can continue the conversation. Thank you very much. Its my pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you. Rose Major General h. R. Mcmaster, he is command erp of the armys Maneuver Center for excellence in fort benning, georgia inspect in 2005 and 2006 he led the third cavalry in iraq. He also directed the joint Anticorruption Task force in kabul, afghanistan, from 20102012. Last month, secretary of defense hagel. He will oversee the armys think tank which focuses on the future of warfare. I am pleased to have Major General h. R. Mcmaster back at this table, welcome. Charlie, thanks. Its great to be with you. Rose you as well. Tell me what your new responsibilities are. Its a privilege to continue to serve in any capacity but its particularly exciting to join an organization who makes sure our army is prepared as part of the joint force to deter conflict, to response to crisises and if necessary fight and win in future wars. As americans we dont expect to, and we ought not to have fair fight. So we want to give our forces every advantage we can give them. And so the first order of business is to sort of lay a strong Conceptual Foundation that defines the problem of future war, and then how we have to preparure forces to fight and win in future armed conflicts. Rose are we now prepared it fight two warlz at the same time . I think its been clear from public statements recently tha that that that old Defense Strategy of being able to fight two wars simultaneously is no longer feasible given the size of the force and the capabilities and the projections for the defense budget. So the key is, as general oderno or the vice chief of staff has spoken about just in this past week, we believe our army can do the minimum to summit the current Defense Strategy, which is to fight one major contingency operation, hold on to another one, and be able to respond to that one later, at a force size of about 450,000, but thats really cutting it close there. Of course, there are dangers that well fall below that level. But, of course, as military officers we dont make those decisions. In a democracy, you get the army that the people are willing to pay for, and its our job as general officers and leaders to do best we can with those resources. And make sure we do right by the nation and do right by our soldiers. Rose let me talk about something you write about with interest and this why i think general petraeus liked and you people like me who like to read what you say. The first is revolution in military affairs. What do you mean by that . This orthodoxy of the revolution in military affairs, it really gained a lot of momentum in the 1990s, and it actually set us up for a lot of difficulties we had in both afghanistan and iraq. This is the idea that advances in technology, and in particular, communications technologies, information technologies, computing power, precision are you of munitions had made war wholly new and future wars were going to exhibit a high degree of discontinuity with all words that had gone before it. The saw. Was the application of these technologies to war would make war fast, cheap, efficient, and allow us to dominate any opponent. I mean, the lpg surrounding this orthodoxy was pretty arrogant. Rose a lot of that came out of the gulf war from 91, did it not . It did, it did. Rose we had such a superior military force. We did. And i think it was a misunderstanding, though, of the result of the gulf war throad a lot of it. The conventional wisdom came in the wake of the gulf war, the abilities and potential in the gulf war were going to be decisive in the future wars. They undervalued the training and professionalism of our force, which gives us a tremendous advantage, along with the technology. It also undervalued the iraqis approach to the war. I think are you can say there are two fundamental ways to fight the u. S. Military asymmetrical and stupid. And i think the iraqis in 1991 chose stupid. Many fought with great courage and honor but they were overmatch nevada ways they could not even imagine because they had at war with the iranian from 8088. You had the infantry walking at them. And now you had armored formations that could five fireand move forward at the same time and force forces that were confident and well trained. These aspects of our overmatch i think were underappreciateed. Rose who has fought the best asymmetrical war against the United States . Gosh, i think all our adversaries have tried to some degree or another. And you can go back, obviously, to the frontier wars and the wars against native american tribes which were fundamentally asymmetrical. I think you can look at the fights weve had in the philippines, during the philippines insurrection, fundamentally asymmetrical. Rose asymmetrical means . Its common sense. If you see the enemy has certain strengths, you dont want to impale yourself on that strength. You want of i want to go around that strength and take advantage of weaknesses. Rose most revolutionary forces are asymmetrical. They are because they come at the problem from a military weakness so they have to organize military operations in a way that allows them to strike at strengths and make contact with us and fight us on their own terms. And also, they operate on multiple battles grounds, all of our enemies do. Rose did the insurgency in iraq have that capability . What was striking about this insurgency and i think as well, also the insurgency in afghanistan is that they continually evolved, based on how they saw our responses to their actions against us. For example, initially the iraqis, the iraqi insurgency was really driven toward inflicting casualties on us and they thought we would leave. And saddam handed out copies of black hawk down. Kill some americans and theyll leave. When that didnt work, they attacked infrastructure, make people miserable, draw pools of popular discontent from which you can draw strengths. And then they began to attack neighborient forces. And ultimately, they formed an alliance of convenience between former saddamists and jihadist organizations associated with al qaeda. This is when zarqawi came into the picture. And their strategy became to perpetuate and accelerate a sectarian civil war, create a chaotic environment, and out of that chaotic environment, try to establish controls in certain territories. Rose but the surge drove a wedge between that relationship. It did. I think ultimately we responded to that evolution of the conflict. We were behind. I think we were behind in the beginning, mainly based on ignorance of the problem set there that i think had quite a bit to do the orthodoxy, the idea we would in the future be able to conduct what was called at the time rapid, decisive operations, neglecting some of the continuities in the nature of war its political dimension of war, the human dimension of war, wars inherent uncertainty, war is a contest of wills. I think we went from ignorance i think we went from ignorance to denial to a certain extent. We didnt want to conditional this was an insurgency and a threat to our vital interests and consoldaylight the gains in the iraq and get to a sustainable outcome there consistent with our interests. As the insurgency continued to evolve, we didnt maybe adapt fast enough. And i think when you saw that adaptation was toward the end of the 2006, beginning of 2007, when it was clear the dominant feature of the war in iraq had become this very struck thive sectarian civil war that still had a problem of insurgency associated with it, still had a problem of transnational Terrorism Associated with it. But them we were able in 2007 to reassess the situation, ask the right questions, and then develop a strategy and an Operational Plan to address it. Rose is it fair to say and i dont that the modern american text pook o textbook on counterinsurgency came out of the iraq war . I think so. But there can be no textbook i think this is where people get confused sometimes. Counterinsurgency did you write a manual. We did write a manual but in our Army Doctrine helps you conceptualize but doesnt give you the answer. Its like von claus said, military theor senot to accompany you to the battlefield and tell you what to do. Its just like an old professor prepares a student, but then the student has to go on and make his own way. Its not designed to give you a strategy. So i think when some people criticize i think now its become very fashionable, almost conventional wisdom to say, that didnt work. The counterinsurgency theory didnt work. Look at what happened in iraq . It was never meant to be a strategy. So it can help you request the right questions. Can you help you access previous best practices, but you have to understand each these problem sets on your own term . Zero dark 30 say fallacy, and we know what that means. Ill have you tell me. The idea that specialops can take care of everything. The danger of these fallacies is they confused vital capabilities for strategies and for the answer to future wars. So just as the rm a assumes you can solve the problem of future war by applying firepower on to land from the arrow space maritime domains, its zero dark 30 fallacy is all you need is a global swat team that can do raids against enemy organizations and you can do it efficiently for relatively low cost. And what special Operations Forces do is amazing. Theyre keeping us safe how is it different from what you just said . , of course, the enemy has a say and our enemies apply countermeasures to all of these capabilities. I mean, theyre traditional concealment, intermingle with civilian population. There are technological countermeasures. And all enemy organizations are not the same. So we, because of our global interests and because of our vital interests and those of our key partners and allies, you know, can be place at risk by nation states and the fielded forces of nation states, and these networked organizations that are quite dangerous because a lot of these organizations you can look at hezbollah for example in syria . In syria if you look at alinous ra, and isi, if you look at hezbollahs operations in israel itself, these are nonstate actors who can capabilities previously only those are destructive weapons. Its communications. Its the ability to mobilize resources. Sufficient financial resources. Rose are they dependent on nation states to provide them the,s they use. This is the nexus between hostile nations and these forces. For example what, would hezbollah be without iran, really, and what would what would al qaeda and associated groups be without at least the ability to establish support bases and safe havens within the bound reas of certain nation state. So i think its important for us to be able to deter nation states, as well as nonstate actors, but also to be able to respond to crises involving the fielded forces of nation states and sold hybrid enemies. Rose there is a sense in the country, i think, and you hear it in terms of conversations that a lot of people look and think the future of modern watch is paramilitary and special ops kind of forces. Right. Rose and sometimes it is characterized as sort of a counterterrorist warfare rather than counterinsurgency warfare. Right. I think thats a fair statement. I think people would like war to be sort of a problem you can address by raiding. I call it a sort of raiding mentality. It doesnt get you involved in all the difficult things on land, you know, like people and populationpopulations and securf course, the enemies ar enemies o operation in population. They go to areas that are weak north under state control, so its important to work with partners, and we have to have the capability ourselves to if i remember correctly you made your first reputation in terms of analysis to the vietnam war. And part of what came out of vietnam war is hearts and minds. Right, right. Rose that seems to me to still be relevant to modern watch if in fact its a counterinsurgency that youre fighting. Thats right. Rose bought you depend on them for, among other things, intelligence i. E. , information. Right, and what we see, what is common, i think, to many of these conflictses and, of course, all of them have unique dynamics associated with them but whats common i think in syria, whats common with the conflict in yemen. What you see in northern nigeria, what you see in libya today. What you saw in mali. What you see in many other places thats most of the hot spots except ukraine. Right. And what you see is you see these transnational terrorist organizations who take advantage of local competitions, political competitions for power, sources and survival and portray themselves as patrons and protectors of one of the aggrieved parties and thats how they gain access. Once they gain access you see what theyve done in syria. They have their own agenda and establish control by threw brutality, murder, and intimidation. Some force has to lift that pall of fear, lift the intimidation but we have no force doing that, other than the force of the syrian army today, and they have their own fear element and alls of thats absolute right. Im not saying we should do this. Thats a policy decision, certainly. But we dont want to be delusional about the ability to achieve or help the Syrian People achieve some sort of sustainable outcome there in syria that does anything less than establish security under some sort of political control. Rose then where is it going to come from in syria . Thats the real problem. Rose thats not a policy question. The society is becoming more fractious and fragmented as the cycle of sectarian violence continues. Rose and even elementes of people within fighting each other. Thats right. Rose with levels of violence. Right. Whats i think is important about the syria problem is how we think about it. Weve got to really ask the first order questions as we have here what is the real nature of the conflict . Theres been some great work done on that by International Crisis groups other ands that really summarizes the nature of the conflict. And given that nature of the conflict, what can be done. With all of these problems, each of the ones i mentioned, there is an internal dimension which in syria and getting worse and worse. There is also an external dimension to the problem and some suggest the International Community needs to work on the problems from the outside in and prevent the conflict from expanding geographically and becoming more destructive and more of a humanitarian crise but to work towards some sort of political outcome that can break that cycle of violence. And ultimately there has to be some internal political conversation or settlement that removes support for these extremist groups who find it is in their interest to perpetuate the violence. What happens is you have a war time economy that begins to be selfperpetuating and you have powerful people inside of a power vacuum, really, who see it as in their interest to perpetuate it. The marlin perkins, wherever he was staying, he was not on the battlefield of but he sent jim,000er to do that. And your point is . Were searching for the easy solutions, and one of the easy solutions were in danger of seizing upon is well get other armies to do that for us, and well be like marlin perkins, stand off and provide capabilities and advisers. This ignores important continuity in the nature of war. War is essentially political. It depends on the agree which your interests, first of all, align with those of your partners you want to fight on your behest, and it has a lot to do with the interests of these various groups. Weve encountered some of these pitt fails. Why were the Kandahar Police officer so unreliable for so long. It isnt because we didnt kandahar was their it had been their ideological center, and we unwittingly in the early years of the war helped create the excluesary political economy that helped leave key population outside the tent. And thats the tribal population from which the taliban grew strength and came back in. Mali is another example beeper doing a great job training the armed forces and a portion defected to fight with al qaeda. I think one of the key things now that weve learned in iraq many lessons associated with this, with the ministry of interiors and forces we have to put the politics at the center of these efforts and recognition want degrees to which our interests are incongruent. Rose the final fallacy is we can opt out of it. That means we ought to in this case listen to trotsky who says you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you. laughter this is a tendency we have look but look what happened to trotsky. I know. The war did have an interest in him. It caught up with him. Rose it sure did. I think what that we can, we tend to be as americans because were optimistic people and we have a belief as we should in our strength and power, an example of owrp economy. We tend top define the world and the problem of future war in relation to us. Its a somewhat narcissistic view. If we set out this course and rely on these narrow rank of capabilities for our natural defense the world will comply with that. But, of course, we have interacted with enemies within wars, structures of iraq and afghanistan, as the conflicts evolve over time. But we also interact with adversaries and potential enemies in between wars soap if you stake out sort of say narrow suite of capabilities and upon say this is what im am going to bank onure our adversaries are going to figure out a way around is that. I think system appropriate to have a broad range of capabilities. This is aerospace power, this is cpower. Increasingly, cyber capabilities. But its land forces, right, and ultimately, all the problems in the other domain its aerospace, cdomain, theyre land based. People live on land. If you want to deter war by placing something of value to your is that why we kept troops in europe and korea . , of course, of course, yeah. Rose otherwise it would not be an effective deterrent. I dont think it would be. They had come storms down. Rose theyd come storming down. I think you can see this for example in putins calculation in the crimea. Rose which is . The calculation he can use land forces to reassert russian power on the because of geography and right, geography and geopolitics as well. How we define our final interests and elements of previous divisions that have left people who might favor a russian regime are on the other side of the border. People go to war today and will in the future. For three multiplal reasons. Fear, honor, and interest. Rose who said that first . Rose they go to war for interest, for fear, and honor, fear, and interest. Here are three things you talked about, the ageold truth about war. War is political. We have been talking about that. It is. Who was who first said that war is simply politics by other means. This was carl von claus is he the smartest analyst of war there has each been. He writes in this delectic, so he puts out a thesis and synthesis. You have to read it in the round. Rose who was he . He was a prugz who helped found and teach the prugz war this is in the article 19th century. He is a product of the napoleonic wars, and they were trying to institutionalize the generating a deep understanding of the nature of war and watch. And, of course, hes coming at a real shift in the character of war, whereas in the past, it just been earns that had very narrow Campaign Seasons tied to monarchies. Rose was that because of napoleon . What motivates soldiers . It was also the raetion of the french revolution. And the accept theiments associated with the french nationalism, that led to the extraordinary power. Of you have to study napoleon, i think. Hes one of the greatest innovators. One of the great field command he learned from a guy named bcialtion orse, who preceded him in the french army who came up with a system to operate in mountous terrain. Thats frant, cavalry, and artilly. Each of these capabilities are not decisive in and of themselves. Its now you combine them. I its not one or the other. Theres no Single Service or single around solution to war. Its how to accomplish your policy foals and objectives as part of the plx of all elements of national power. What i think nepolian understand was how the fight concombined arms, but he he had very capable commanders in his early campaigns. He understood what mission orders. Rose let me go three things. War is political. War is human. Yes. Rose always human. Always war is human. It gets down to fear, honor and interests. What really fundamentally drives conflict . What is driving the conflict now in syria . Rose what is driving it . I think peer on the fa part f the allies and the ones who think the fate is tied to the suicide of us all. If there is a political order that doesnt have room for them and fear of jihadist organizations in isis. Its also a sense of honor. Rose is it theyre caught between two hostile groups. The people dont adhere to these rye just when you are living if in the case of syria for gen rakes underneath a dictatorial regime, theres no space for political P High School opposition. What we would call liberals, to their culture and political history and culture, theyre voiceless and powerless, the only organization is they can really have any power after the collapse of a regime or as a regime is beluge of leaguured, and i think this helps explain to some degree the rise of the muzz lum brother hoot who is organized in the wake of the collapse of the regime. Rose the people in Tahrir Square had no real organization, no political organization. They were of those were people in obviously to the government for years. In iraq you see the only people who are organized are want expatriate opposition groups and were able to and what the iranians have done in iraq is backed a lot of different horses. An iranian said the difference between iranians and americans, americans are like chickens, make a lot of noise and lay one eggs. We iranians are like fish we make no noise and lay thousands of eggs. Theyve backed various groups in iraq. They often play them against each other. They tried to unseat Prime Minister maliki and that backfired when he did the charge of the nights operations in basra and took over operations in sadr city. My personal view of what iran is trying to do in the arab world is i believe thatter trying to keep the arab world perpetually weak so they can continue to advance in interest. What you saw in iraq is sort of a meas blah model for iraq where you have a weak government that is dependent on iranian support to survive. Rose we live in a world of hightech. We live in a world of drones, of a different kind of warfare. Instantaneous communications. We live in the world of the possibilities of cyb erp warfare. Its the whole range of capabilities that are important. I think theres an emergent capability, longrange Ballistic Missiles connected to thats the biggest threat. Rose let me stop you there. Do we believe both have longrange Ballistic Missiles that can carry nuclear we dont know i mean, i dont know. Obviously, im shiewrp we have the best people working on this. Rose let me stay with it. But the fear you have thats in the future. Rose longrange missiles that have the potential to carry weapons of great destruction. Right. And theres been some great work done on this, on longrange missiles. Its not just the missiles but a Strike Network. Something tanks here and new york and d. C. Have really looked at this and done some really good work and said the advantages we banked on, information technology, that kind of a network, Strike Network, reconsense Strike Network will be available to adversaries. Theres never been a silver you had the su we have to recognize that our future adversaries are going to have some of the capabilities we have now and be able to disrupt what they perceive as our strengths. What is our answer to that . I think its a balanced joint force that can play rock, scissors, paper with anybody and not just had a rock or paper or scissors. You have tiebably to put it all together. While many have written about and did work on antiaccess area to to deny our forces to get somewhere for ability of access. It begs the question, acsort for that. I think this narcissistic tendency we have we are seeing as only a defensive threat and i think its an opt i was threat that could be analysis to the v1 v2 stretch in london. Rose former secretary of defense has said to me at this payable or other places. They are not necessarily military bit can play a strategic role, that we have not deployed those enough and some are trying to influence and change the direction of the crungz this a state of which you had a lot to do with in afghanistan. Why was i that so difficult . Oh, gosh, i mean, again, it goes back to really politics right. The problem ultimately inia afghanistan is this was a state destroyed by the the soviet occupation which the resist attendance the rowpgz from 19921996 and a taliban machine that destroyed any niewgzs we would recognize. Enabling muhahideen militias through our airpower, our advisers, after the collapse of the taliban which i think was a physical collapse but it was a psychological collapse because every afghanistan was vinceed of the defeat. You had to help pull the pate together so you get to some sort of viable estate. You have the really, the Institution Building we didnt have enoughasty so these state institutions and functions were captured by the muhahideen, and resulted in they were driven by criminal agendas but really mainly by a political agenda which is to amass power in advance of the postu. S. Afghanistan. And it was written boy a lack of faith and they were counting on a postUnited States. The real problem is how do you convince key afghan leaders it is in their ps to take on the the political settlement that emerged in sachg was to some degree dependent on unchecked. Upon criminality. If i give you the ministry of confidence, fore, and i low youd to in that ministry of defense, what are you going to do, extract of extractings bribes and so fert. The settlement that emerged in afghanistan i think everybody after the end of 2004, early 2005, was increasingly reliant on organized crime and criminality. Serve on focused on president karzai. Its parof the problem to convince him to take on the problem but the problem is a lot more complicated and a bit more dispute about that. The key to the whole thing is political and i think incument on all of us to play a supportive role supportive of what . Supportive of reform. Upon a lot of them were killed but there are so many who p who are ve of rezit unit, and are rose im asking very simple questions but the idea was why couldnt we have supported them more expensively wielep early stages of u. S. Involvement. When the taliban was at its weakest. This was 2002 and 2003. I think it was a missinged faint assumptions about the nature of war. War is not just about the application of military pure of power against enemy organization. Certainly thats a big part of it. You have to defeat enemy organizations. Thats the part of war that we were probably best at. Have some bases of security and to be able to weve said were not going to do nation building anymore. But we also had to enp engage some degree of activity to upon in the wake of any military operation. If you look at the panama invasion, dominican product. If look at the suz engagement in the philippine. Rose what generals in the United States have been at the top level of strategic thinkers . I think there are a number of them who dealt with very difficult circumstances and disappears through imagination, coverage, and leadership. I think mortgagech he was an amazing leaders and commander. I think if you look at the eye brilliance. Rose when i come to world war ii. You have tock loot George Marshall as the organizer of victory. Each of these generals have their strength, and if you want to look at patrickal demoons. Montgomery, bradley, and you see their different files come to of a lits. In vietnam i think you have to go with crayton abrams. He was a tank combined arms man who also found the modern average rangers. He was as a general, it means youre not doing specific things anymore. You have to do general things. You have to look at the whole army. Rose and when you go to the gulf war. In the gulf war you can i think there are debates about all of these but certainly i think the idea to avoid animal strength, execute a turning movement. Who did that. That he was they did a sort of long envelopement. And the seventh corps go the flank, you know, attack into kuwait. What people forget about the gulf war, they think, that was easy, quick, efficient. But what made it different as i mentioned earlier was the enemy not being very smart about how they fought us. Given the objective of the status quo. Give the quantity mary is churchill considered he had a couple of things that were doozies gln some of the becaused words you hear now in terms of future forces is were going to be anlil, nimble, lean, and all those are important qaez qualities for forces rapidly organized for the mission and ultimately fet there passed. What you have to do the forces of upon. Them i have ipflexibility on command. In gla lil 52 upon. You for the it will disrupt landing plan. The alternative is to continue to imfail yiers weapon you can learn from all of these campaigns but learning from history i think is the not going to give you the answer. The old notion that the general is also fighting last war. No. I think generally when you see problems associate associated w. We studied the lessons of the last to make it easier not asking the right questions. The other thing i ask, and this is my find question, if you have someone in the military who is iconoclastic and rattling the cage of established patterns, is that among the military services and at the pentagon a welcome voice . Absolutely it is. I think that youre sure. I think there is a misconception im sure about it. I lived it. Seen other people. I think the military is one of the places that welcomes candid assessments. And of situations. And candid feedback because the stakes are pretty darn high. They involve life and death. So, of course, as in any organization, you find leaders less or more receptive to that. Rose but the interesting thing is in war, if you make a mistake its easy to see the consequences. It is. War is the great oddterof military institutions. And we have to be careful as we think about future wars that we dont do so in such a way that we underpin our capabilities with flawed notions about and ideas about whats adequate to secure our vital interests. Rose Major General h. R. Mcmaster, thank you. Thank you, its always a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org report with Tyler Mathisen and spring ahead. The private sector added more than 190,000 jobs last month. Will that translate into a strong employment report on friday . Frustration on the hill. Senators push General Motors ceo for answers only to come up short. What will it take to get more answers . Cost of overtrading. A new study adds to the controversy over the value of mammograms. Is more testing always better and at what price . All that and more tonight on nightly Business Report for wednesday, april 2nd. Good evening, everyone. It was another day of records on wall street. Thats thanks to encouraging reports about jobs and u. S. Manufacturing. Payroll firm