This is press pass, your all access pass to an extra meet the press conversation. This week on press pass, how the u. S. Forces in iraq and afghanistan adapted to ever changing threats around the world in the 21st century. All in a new book called team of teams, new rules of engage engagement for a complex world coauthored by Stanley Mcchrystal who joins me now. Welcome back. Thank you for having me. Nice to see you here. First of all, the goal of the book is, is it about on one hand advice on how to deal in a complex world. How much of this is also a business book . It is mostly a Business Leadership book. In reality, our experience in that war, we think, is absolutely relevant to people who face a complex environment and thats just about everybody. And it was interesting in the way you talked about dealing with insurgents and insurgencies al qaeda, particularly al qaeda in iraq is an insurgency parts of the taliban, isis is an insurgency. You called them like startups theyre look a good startup, good at guerrilla marketing, they were guerrilla warfare. Thats exactly right. They came at the time when Information Technology leveraged them into an entirely different level of effectiveness. Had they been the traditional compartmented cell that a terrorist group was in, they would have been probably good but pretty slow. Suddenly al qaeda in iraq showed up and they had cell phones they had the internet and they the ability to put off a vehicle borne ied or car bomb in baghdad and terrify people in mosul within hours. It is interesting, al qaeda was around in the 90s. They were is contained the right word . How would you describe it . They were sort of conventional. That contained them, except for, of course a few things. It wasnt until al qaeda in iraq suddenly came as the new version, the new new thing, they leveraged this technology and they had this franchise approach and it went viral. Now, isis is al qaeda in iraq 2. 0. They are. And whats scary about them, fbi director recently said whether theyre directing attacks or inspiring attacks, he sees no difference and sees it as isis related. Isis has military power, but they have got a doctrine that is not acceptable to most people. And the behavior is terrible. And yet they used this Information Technology to make us think theyre behind every door under every bed, in every country, and sort of unstoppable. The propaganda is stronger than the military. It is. It is much stronger. They have just enough military capacity that it gives some reality behind that. Your job is to try to advise people youre in a Big Organization the United States government we are doing a terrible job at combatting this. What do you say to that . One of our challenges is not individual competence. I dont think it is competence of our small teams. Or even our siloed organizations. It is linking them together. If you go back to the 9 11 report sadly, it shows that all the pieces of the puzzle were on the table. The people just couldnt put them together. And i think what we see now in our government and our efforts is different parts of the government just like we see in different parts of commercial firms, dont communicate very well tend to go up traditional hierarchal chains when the lateral communication is the only thing that is fast enough and they make decisions at levels that are 50 years out of date. And now we have got to make much closer to the point of action. Your rise in the military and your the people that became fans of you, always singled out the idea you were somehow able to be nimble intellectually in an organization nimble u. S. Military. How did that happen . Is this because you were able to pull it off, you had a good team around you are some part of the military that does allow you to be nimble. I think if youre in a community of pepople informal communities, you feed on each other, you push on each other. There was an atmosphere of thinking and there was also an atmosphere of pushing each other. And so the status quo never was worshipped as much as winning was worshipped. Is that something unique to special ops. I dont know that it is unique only to special ops. It was prevalent during that period. It can come and go in any part of the military and unfortunately it is hard to hold on to if it starts to erode. When i first saw your book before i read it and i realize it is as much a business book as it is it is new rules of engagement. I also think about diplomacy and in your experience in afghanistan, and how to engage american diplomacy has to change. It used to be you could buy an ally. You cant buy an ally anymore, can you . No. And you cant keep a longterm relationship with that kind of a relationship. Pakistan was a bought ally in the cold war era and it doesnt work today. How do you adapt . I think there are a couple of things. You got to learn. You got to learn who youre dealing with. There is a certain level of empathy required and not just by the ambassador on the ground or a few diplomats or a few soldiers but sort of nationally. You got to be able to turn the lens and understand that people have a perspective. You may not agree with but it is often just as rational just as defensible as yours and it has got to be a National Government quality that we have and we havent done that very well. Let me pause had here for a quick break. Well be back with more with general Stanley Mcchrystal after this. Puerto ricos Healthcare System is on life support. Putting three and a half million Puerto Ricans at risk. Its an outrage. Puerto ricans are us citizens and pay the same medicare taxes, but receive only half the federal healthcare funding as the other 50 states. The headlines tell the story. Unfair treatment from washington. Thousands without medications. Its a crisis that could imperil the whole economy. President obama must act now to protect care for three and a half million u. S. Citizens. Before its too late. Were back with more from retired general Stanley Mcchrystal, coauthor of a new book called team of teams. I want to get back to the book in a moment. I want to ask you about your military career you got into the military right after vietnam. Right. And there was a big negative atmosphere about the vietnam war. How did that impact your psyche as a soldier. It was interesting. Inside the military there were problems with dishonesty and integrity, all of those character issues. And so i got to be a part of watching the army try to rebuild itself. And even while i was at west point, you could read about different problems those kinds of things. So i think what it caused my generation to do was say that we got to take a different course. We got to be part of something different. I think it was actually very helpful because if you cant see what can happen then the cautionary tale is not in front of your mind. I say this and ask you, because im watching now, where at the point you entered the military there was bipartisan consensus at the vietnam war was a mistake. Here we are, and were now at the point there is bipartisan consensus that the iraq war was a mistake. And im curious, are you what kind of impact is that going to have on todays american soldiers. It is interesting. After vietnam, of course a lot of people tried to say, blame it on the press, blame it on Something Else but the military largely just took vietnam and shoved it in the cupboard and said were going to fight elsewhere. And were going to do armored warfare. They really in many ways blame the politicians, look, they were following orders. Absolutely. Okay. What about this one . There is always that danger now. I think most of the people who fought in iraq and afghanistan now say that militarily we made a lot of mistakes at least first in iraq. Then we corrected and got a lot better. I think the same is true in afghanistan. But i think that there is a sense that we might now not believe that there is enough political resolve to warrant future action. Thats my curiosity here. Because i wonder what is the trust level. Did you have trust issues with the Political Leadership in the late 70s when you got into the military and do you think there will be a trust issue. You see that boy, everybody is walking away from this one and it was a politically it is a political decision. Done by civilians. And, of course the military is involved. So nobody i think all the way back to korea, we have the habit of getting into wars and our goal is to get out of wars. The military can feel now wait a minute i dont want to go again unless this time there will be a level of resolve that is commensurate with the level of sacrifice taken. So i think it is going to have to be something that works through i think it will have to be trust built between the different parts of the government because young military particularly can be they can come out of this deeply affected by that experience. And i just wonder do you think hurts recruiting . It doesnt seem to have hurt recruiting. We certainly the American People have been extraordinary about embracing thats different from vietnam. Dont love the war, love the troops. I want to ask you another thing, secretary of the navy about a month ago said something to me that deserved to be Headline News and it wasnt. He announced the purchase of the strike fighter. He said this will probably be the last manned jet fighter that the u. S. Navy ever purchases. What do you think the unintended consequences will be of unmanned fighter jets were taking the drone thing and taking it to the next level. I think it is hes absolutely correct. But the danger is that lowers the threshold for using certain weapons. The problem with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is not their capability because it is wonderful. But if you go back to the you remember the strikes after president clinton launched in 1997 they struck sudan and places in afghanistan and what not, and if you ask the American People the next morning whether we were at war, we said no we shot some tomahawks. If you ask people near the point of impact if they were at war with america, different answer. So the danger of lowering the threshold for warlike activities and having them antiseptic is a danger they become too easy and too casual and if there is not a cost and a risk associated you might do things that have an unintended cost. Youre saying what ive heard this from others so how do you build that in . You have to hope you have leaders with moral clarity . I think it circles back around to empathy. Before you go to war with someone, before you strike someone, it is important to understand how theyre going to feel about it. We sometimes say if we bomb someone, thats going to scare them or thats going to cause them to quit. But thats not the track record. The North Koreans and the chinese didnt quit in korea, the north vietnamese didnt quit. We didnt see al qaeda quit. Nobody is quitting in afghanistan. Correct. And so we got to make sure that we are mature enough to turn that lens and appreciate that fact. Back to the book. Are you finding that you end up having more impact on Legacy Companies or new companies when you try apply some of your military leadership strategies to the business world. When we started we thought we would be most welcome in Legacy Companies that with hard structures. We tend to be brought in by very confident chief executive officers very competent ceos, who are good not turn arounds, but companies that are good but had this sense they can get better. That was different from what i expected. So were probably helping companies go from the 70 to the 95 as opposed to going from 25 to 75. When you started this five years ago, i remember touring your offices, seeing what you were doing and what you thought you would be doing now. What is the biggest eye opener in the five years youve been doing this . It is very much what we thought it would be except the personal part of the relationship with our partners. When we work with an organization we build deep personal relationships with the team that we work with. Deeper than you thought. Much deeper. We dont come in and just give them a report and say heres what youre doing wrong. Were the opposite. We come in and go through with them and say were going to stay until it is the way you want it. And that develops a relationship a partnership and ownership on our side that i find