The Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He talked about his experience serving under president and obama. Steve and on behalf of the family, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the distinguished lecture. Mattis in front of an audience of 900 people, a scenario which would be unthinkable today. And the Chicago Council which we founded in 2018. For thes as a form discussion and elevation of diverse perspectives on the big global questions. It can be and policymakers, military leaders, journalists, and analysts throughout the year to discuss their insights with the public. The center produces original research to deepen our understanding of the proposed solutions to critical global the surveyincluding of American Public opinion on u. S. Foreign policy. The 2020 installment will be released later this summer. As the council approaches its totenary, they will continue enhance important work into the second century. Turning to this afternoons program, its my honor to welcome our distinguished speaker by way of a brief introduction. Dr. Robert gates served as the 22nd u. S. Secretary of defense under both president george w. Obama. D president barack he was also an officer in the United States air force who worked for the cia before being appointed directly to the agency. He was a member of the National Security staff in four administrations and served eight president s of both political parties. President of texas a m university from 2002 to 2006. Currently chancellor of the college of william and mary. He is the author of four books including his latest, exercise failures,americans successes, and a new path forward in the post cold war world. He has been the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs since 2013 and served as a u. S. Representative to nato from 2009 to 2013 and on the National SecurityCouncil Staff under president bill clinton. He was a coauthor with lindsay of americas abdication of Global Leadership. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming former secretary of state and former director of the cia, dr. Robert m gates. And the ambassador. Thank you to the crown family for their invaluable support of the council which allows us to deliver the timely and critical analysis to a global audience, and welcome to all of you today for joining us. If this is your first event with as, please take a moment to www. Out our website at thechicagocouncil. Org. We do research and report on a whole variety of issues that may be of importance to you. Todays program will be on the record. A recording of the conversation will also be available on our website and on social media shortly after we finish. Please share this with your family and your friends. As a reminder, the council is an independent and nonpartisan platform and the views expressed by individuals we host are their own and do not represent the institutional positions or views of the council. Ill start a conversation with secretary gates and after about 30 minutes or so, well take your questions which you can submit by typing ccga. Live directly into your browser. Submit the question you would like me to ask secretary gates. Please also consider purchasing secretary gates latest book. If you havent had a chance to purchase before todays event, well share it in the chat function here on zoom. Thank you for joining us here this afternoon, its really great to be back on the Chicago Council. Its great to be back here with you. Congrats on a terrific book, its a good and easy lead. You chronicled the exercise of power over the last 30 years by four different president s, well comment on the themes and commonalities in a moment. You were in the administration of George W Bush as the cold war was winding down and as the gulf war was taking place. You were director of the c. I. A. In the final couple of years of that administration. If you put yourself back in that situation at the end of the administration looking forward to the postcold war period, what did you think that world would look like and what did you think, what did you think at that time americas role in it would be or should be . Most Intelligence Officers are pessimistic by nature. In fact, the Washington Post at one point called me the eoyore finding the lightning and darkest cloud. When i stood in my office at c. I. A. , when i was director in december of 1992, i was really optimistic about the future. We, the United States dominated the world in a comprehensive way militarily, politically, econnormally, culturally, as i say in the book, unparalleled since probably the roman empire. We were actually making some progress on middle east peace after the demise after the iraq war, the first gulf war and we obviously have Good Relationship with russia at that point president reagan and president bush had both worked with gorbachev, we had reached out to boris yeltsin, the president of russia and the leader of the former soviet union, if you will. I really thought the future was quite bright and we had a great team in the first bush administration, jim baker was secretary of state, dick chaney was secretary of defense and brett sokov was National Security advisor, we worked together smoothly and it looked like the prospect was very bright. When you read your book, it doesnt look like the last 30 years that every panned out in the way you were hoping in some ways. The big question is what went wrong . That was the germ of an idea that really led to my writing the book was given where we were at the end of 1992 and fast forward 30 years and we are beset at every turn by challenges both internal and external, perceived as withdrawing from a Global Leadership role, in some respect we are. Were fighting three simultaneous crises here inside the United States, a racial cries, an economic crisis, a Public Health crisis and thayer all linked together in one way or another and were paralyzed. The congress cant do anything of any consequence because of the partisan divide. So i want to do wanted to go back and look at how did we get to this place, particularly in terms of the world. What were the things that went wrong and where there successes that we could point to. I used the book to review 15 different Foreign Policy challenges that we experienced during the last 30 years, the obvious ones, russia, china, iran, iraq, afghanistan, but also did we do the right thing and not getting into syria, did we do the wrong thing in the way we went about others, so the book is really, tries to address the question you asked, how did we go from the pinnacle at the end of 1992 to where we are today. Before i get to sort of answer which also lays out your view of where we need to go, as you mentioned, 15 major National Security issues, crises, pick one or two where we did it right, where we got it right, we did the right thing and it worked out in the right way. The two biggest successes that i write about in the book is colombia on a bipartisan basis under three successive president s, we were able to help colombia pull its back from the brink of becoming a state controlled by criminal syndicates. It began under president clinton and one of the lessons was we had a very strong local partner in president uribe who was determined to strengthen the institutions of colombia. He was anticorruption. He was dedicated to democratic principals and ideals and he wanted the colombians to do it themselves. And then on the other side of the coin, the Congress Actually limited the size of the presence the u. S. Could have in colombia. So initially it was 400 people, u. S. People in uniform and it finally grew to 800 but that was it and the same thing on civilians. And so it forced an arrangement in which we were in support of the columbians going against them themselves. We provided the equipment and intelligence, but they carried the fight. The other aspect of it, this is one of the rare instances in which the state department was in charge and there were many agencies that were involved, the Justice Department over 10 or 12year period trained Something Like 40,000 columbian judges. The main point was we had a strong local partner and we were in support of that partner rather than doing the job ourselves. The other success was president bushs initiative to deal with h. I. V. Aids in africa. And, again, it had broad bipartisan support for considerable funding, tens of billions of dollars over an extended period of time that literally saved millions and millions of lives in africa and one of the things that made it work was that a number of different agencies in washington had a role in it, but the president designated a Single Person to be in charge in the state department who had authority over the budget and over the programs so there was a coherence and an integration of all the government efforts in this arena that was very, very rare and the entire project ended up being really enormously successful. So those were two important successes i think during the period and quite honestly, out of the 15 examples that i cite, those are about the only two successes. I was going to ask you about the other 13. Take one or two where you think we really got it wrong and the lesson, then well get to the lessons that we learned from both of those about where we should go in the future. We go back those 30 years, where did we really get it wrong . I think one of the main lessons of the book and it draws on our experience in somalia, haiti, iraq, and afghanistan is that in every case, our initial military engagement was successful and the original military mission was accomplished quickly. The taliban and al qaeda were ousted from afghanistan literally in about five weeks. Saddam was overthrown in similarly small period of time. Our original humanitarian effort in somalia was very successful by our troops. But the one characteric all four had in common that led to problems was that we undertook to, we undertook nation building. We tried to change the culture and the politics of each of those countries, each with its own long history, some like haiti with a long history with us, and in every instance those efforts largely were a failure. And weve spent many years in places like iraq and afghanistan and one of the points that i make in the book is that i believe we were in a position to have left afghanistan in january of 2002. We had an internationally recognized government there, all of the different parties have come together and agreed on somebody to be an interim leader leader. The government had international recognition, a number of countries were prepared to contribute money for afghan reconstruction and construction and that would have been a moment for us to leave. But in every case, it was the original mission was a success, but only when we expanded our objectives and became too ambitious in terms of what we were going to try and do in each of these countries that we ended up getting into trouble. A common factor in success and failure seems to be that if youre going to involve yourself in a nation building exercise or helping a nation to solve the sorely and economic and political problems that may have led to the conflict, if you dont have a partner that actually leads that on the ground, youre not going to be able to success, you cant do it for someone else. You cannot impose democracy on another country. One of my favorite quotes is from churchill where at the end of 1944 was urged to overthrow a dictatorship in athens, greece, who was actually a very strong ally of the allies and impose a democratic government and churchills response was democracy is not a har lot to be picked up in the street at the point of a tommy gun. The point is you cant impose democracy at the point of a gun. So if youre going to be involved in nation building, i think what we didnt understand and this is the lesson i hope my book teaches, is it really is a long term undertaking and it say predominantly civilian undertaking. What we can do is encourage them, give them help as we did colombia in Institution Building and training judges and getting closer to the rule of law, a variety of civilian agencies involved such as Development Assistance with u. S. Agency for International Development and so on, so if were going to be involved in nation building and in some places i think we can be helpful and at very low cost, it has to be a civiliandominated effort and we have to understand that its a very long timeline. The truth is we had troops in south korea, weve had them there for 70 years. South korea did not become a functioning democracy until well into the 1980s. It was a long process. We had tens of thousands of troops in the country for that entire period, so this is not something that can be done with a short time line or, as i say, at the point perfect a gun. Let me remind our audience, if you want to ask a question of secretary gates, you can do so by typing into your browser and ask a question there and well get to that in a few minutes. The overarching lesson, i think, that this set of issues point to that really is at the core of your book is that the overmilitarization of our Foreign Policy, that the military is not only just a very large stument that the United States has, but has displaced other nonmilitary instruments often in our engagement broad. And part of it is a very strong military, the other part of it is a growing and weakening state department and economic instruments and other instruments of power that we had. Why did that happen . Shouldnt after the cold war with the peace dividend, the military actually gone down and the nonmilitary means of our poweren emphasized more than it turned out they were . A lot of people dont realize that one of the significant contributing factors to success in the cold war were the nonmilitary instruments of power. The cold war took place against the backdrop of the biggest arms buildup, arms race in the history of the world, but because the soviet union and the United States could not fight without both countries being destroyed, that competition took place using other means. For example, our decades long effort to deny the soviets technology that would assist their military programs, but also in the modernization of their economy. Strategic communications, the United States information agency, you know, its hay day was in the Kennedy Administration under people like edward r. Murrow and in the Reagan Administration under people like charlie wick had reached to every corner of the world. In the 1990s, i think because of the hubris that came with success in the cold war and our standing alone atop the world, if you will, i think that the congress and president s essentially thought that these instruments could be dismantled. It was the congress in 1998 that eliminated the United States information agency, the congress at the same time wanted to eliminate u. S. Agency for International Development and president clinton refused to do that, but then tucked the agency under the state department where it had less independence and lower profile. So all of these instruments that we either dismantled or saved of resources, even as the military, it had some budget cuts during the 1990s after the end of the cold war, but it remained enormously strong. So it was kind of it was a man bites dog story when at the end of my first year of secretary in the fall of 2007, i gave a speech in which i called for more resources for the state department. Nobody had ever heard of the secretary of defense calling for more resources for the state department, but as secretary of state condi rice would like to remind me, i had more people in military bands than she had in the foreign service. And so with respect to overmilitarization, it kind of recalls the old principal, if the only tool you have is a hammer, than every problem looks like a nail. And so i think we began to look at International Problems through that lens and that was one of the reasons in my view that we overmilitary advertise over military advertised our Foreign Policy. It was a tool rather than a last resort. The muscle memory for these institutions, you point out in the book that President Trump tried to cut state department and economic assistance by 30 in 2017, again in 2018 and congress restored those numbers, but those numbers are still nothing like what is necessary for the state department to be the kind of Effective Organization that you think it should be, the economic instruments could be stronger and more capable, the communication ability of the United States to be more robust. We need more resources, how is that going to happen . One of the ironies of the last 20 years or so is that as congress has become more and more soured on the use of military force, at the same time they have cut the resources for the nonmilitary instruments of power, so kind of where are you going from there . If you dont want to use the military, but youre not going to strengthen the civilian sector of Foreign Policy, the civilian instruments, then how do you sustain Global Leadership. Of course, my concern is that we are perceived and are withdrawing from our global responsibilities. I think its because peo