Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jim Mattis Call Sign Chaos 20240713

Your cell phones on silent. If you want to post anything on social media please tag politics prose and gw events. I am the partner manager at politics and prose and want to thank all of you for coming out on a vent we are out with George Washington University Joint venture also to bring jim mattis in conversation tonight. First a few other Exciting Events coming up in partnership with gw september 11 we have an event with Malcolm Gladwell it is a live recording of a podcast on npr on september 12 and james comey on september 16 septembe september 24 we will discuss the year of the marquis. We hope to see you at some of them this month. Secretary jim mattis a Pacific Northwest nave it is serving for decades at the marine infantry officer following two years of secretary of defense he returned to the northwest and is now distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution at stanford. Callsign chaos is the account of his career through wide ranging leadership roles in three worst ultimately commanding a quarter of a million troops across the middle east. Along the way he recounts the foundational experiences as a leader exacting the lessons he has learned about the nature of war fighting and peacemaking and allies and the strategic dilemmas now facing our nation. He makes it clear why america must return to a strategic footing not just to continue to win battles but fight wars. Mattis divides his book into three parts of direct leadership executive leadership and strategic leadership in the first part he recalls his Early Experiences leading marines into battle when he knew his troops as brothers in the second part he knows what it means to commit thousands of troops to ensure the intent is understood by the most junior troops so they can form their own mission. In the third part he describes the challenges and techniques of leadership at the strategic level where millet terry leaders reconcile wars with the grim reality of the human aspirations the complexity rains and the consequences are severe or catastrophic. Callsign chaos is a memoir of a life of war fighting and Lifelong Learning as he rises from recruit to fourstar general a journey about learning to lead and a story how he threw constant study and action developed a unique leadership philosophy making him into the man he is today. General mattis will be in conversation tonight with david brooks political and cultural commentator and currently a commentator on cbs news hour and all Things Considered and meet the press the author of on paradise drive. March 2011 he came out with his third book social animal. Which was number one New York Times bestseller and the latest will not stop flying off the shelves published in april. Please help me to welcome to the to the stage. [applause]. The first time i have ever seen an author work the crowd before the event. [laughter] that the campaign has begun. [laughter] there are many surprises i loved reading your book. And there are many bet the first was that you are hitchhiking around the west at age 13. Give us the basic facts about your family but give us the emotional tone. What kind of house did you grow up in quebecs military quick. No. I was not brought up in a military family at all. We liked being outdoors we would go camping on weekends. My mother and father traveled the world as young people my father was a merchant marine for 15 years my mother was in the army g2 cryptoclerk in south africa working there at the consulate so the world was a place to be explored they didnt know i was hitchhiking. But it was a more trusting time you could be picked up by the crosscountry truck driver in the afternoon not knowing where you would stop that night or those coming off duty they would drive you to the next town it was a great education. You are not the most devoted student in high school or college but you are one of the hardest working people i have ever met but when did that kick in quick. I never thought of what i have done was work but just enjoyment of being around the people but i wanted to be outdoors and explore the world. But i dont think i was much of a student because it seemed to structure to me and everybody has a different way of learning. When you join the marines everybody has to read certain books. There is a reading list when you make corporal there is a new reading list and with sergeant guess what heres another progressive a matter of fact when generals make general there is a new reading list to go back to work. They werent interested in your midlife crisis when you dont have time to do the reading. They were adamant so little by little i didnt like a lot of the jobs in the marines but i loved being around the young infantrymen who would do the dirtiest jobs in the most dangerous i learned to hate minefields at age 21 but i loved being around Young Marines who would crawl there to bite their lip still in their teens probing for something they did not want to find because if they misted their buddy would get killed. The only way i stuck around that lowpaying outfit is i like those young see others in marines who made up the units. This book is almost a love letter to the marine corps when you are in with the troops especially infantry you can feel your happiness. Hanging around 7111 day and then it turns into something different. First of all we are all volunteers so i came in at a time i probably would not have joined. I cant say that for sure but i probably would not have if not for the draft. You had to go. That was all there was to it. You could duck out but you dont want to look like youre not a man. s white will some went off to canada so we thought we would never be allowed to come home for parents anniversary or our brothers wedding. So you signed up to go do your duty and while there thats where i found the marines value valued. I ran an Obstacle Course once and another platoon ran through the fastest i realized i was going to be this guy easily because physical things came easy didnt give it everything i needed and i still beat him and then you climb the rope and touch the top. The Gunnery Sergeant laid into me you were giving it 100 percent. I am fed up with you he accused me of being a communist sent to destroy the marine corps. [laughter] let me make it clear young man. When you give 100 percent i will be 100 percent satisfied 90 percent 100 percent dissatisfied when somebody that big is inyourface you get the idea so you start learning about the word commitment and apply it whether your family or community or wherever you go that stays with you. Its a formative experience. Theres one passage in here where commitment to excellence is uncompromised and personal things are irrelevant. When i read that sentence i thought the last 60 years of American Culture just crumbled because personal sensitivity isnt making you feel bad is a high priority. Thats a good point. On the battlefield there is no secondplace much last night. You have got to win so you are brought up with a very grim set of skills by people who have been there and done it and are not really interested on why it cannot happen simply you have to carry through but pretty soon what carries you along you know everybody beside you will also be there when trouble looms they will come even at the risk of their life. It is humbling but is energizing your now part of something bigger than yourself and that is what expands you. It does not shrink you it expands you to have that. Earlier in your career you are running recruitment in your own area it sounds like you are working 80 hour weeks and an officer didnt want to do that and you bus to him and ended his career. What about Work Life Balance quick. There isnt but everybody does everything they can so you dont dump more of the work on someone else. And in this case i made it clear to the young man you can be a marine or a quitter but you cant be both i will not care more about your career then you do so tell me what you want to be. If you want to be a marine i will coach you and be with you all the way through he decided to test it but remember especially with the number of students who are here tonight you always want to help people but i wont waste my time and thats what i did 95 percent of my time in the marines i was a coach but i will not waste my time coaching someone who is not humble it is worthless just give it up. If they are not humble enough to recognize they need coaching if im not sure youre not then really you cant help them and any organization to become a leader you dont get to be a leader because you have a rank on your caller or a title on your Business Card your juniors determine if you are a leader and on the battlefield they will follow the 19 yearold if the 28 yearold doesnt know what they are doing. Just remember even jesus of nazareth had one out of 12 turned to crap on him. [laughter] i missed that part of the gospel. [laughter] did you have somebody who really coached you quick. I had to think about who are my mentors because now on the tour you look back the whole point of what worked for me not to follow blindly but to say does this make sense. When you are in the infantry you rise and fall on your nco with your sailors and marines hear the last officer in the chain of command to represent all the orders that have come down from those who are in our line of work to go into the killing zone. My first platoon sergeant was from the british indies and the caribbean. His name was Corporal Wayne Johnson he was only 21 years old and i was 21 at the same time. Of course with a name like Wayne Johnson everybody called him john wayne he was overseas for a long time he told me what not to do leave that alone let other people starting to handle it then i started to learn delegating and decisionmaking and responsibility. My second sergeant was also a corporal in the 1973 timeframe he was an immigrant from mexico in the same way, stern but yet who can get down to show a marine who was having trouble how to do something right i use to admire the way in a few sharp words could give someone to tension and turn them in the right direction, mostly spiritually and the physical and mental followed. Then a Staff Sergeant 15 years in the marine corps so i was also learning about the immigrant role in the us military and how they were overrepresented and it was broadening experience because somehow from my hometown 99 percent of the people were native born the military by its very nature will expand you in a way no other organization will in terms of diversity. Mentors come in all shapes and sizes and from all parts of the world. One thing that comes through the book is your affection for the marines i assume leading any size unit you have to be unpopular so you Close Friends with those around you or was there some distance between you and your command quick. I was taught that officers should come as close to the line that separates them and their troops as they can to be themselves without giving up 1 ounce of authority because there will come a time when the chips are down and you will have to point to someone and the enemy and tell them to go. And at that point everything in that young mans body will say dont get up. And you will need that authority. But you used a very critical word because it took me the word trust and respect if you dont have that as a leader that probably wont accomplish much. I knew the troops respected their leaders between 40 and 60 percent of those who tried to become officers but why were some units so good some 40 man platoons as good as 150 man infantry . It took me a long time to figure out the other word was affection in four months around it to start had 29 sailors and marines and informants all of them were killed or injured or wounded around me when you get around 50 percent in the sunni triangle is very tough fighting day in and day out. But what held them together wasnt affection for each other they would keep fighting the matter what happened affection is different the popularity. That brings favoritism thats why you see the military so anti anything to bring other impulses to inside combat assault units. Because to send them forward reading very old textbooks about one favoritism rotted a unit right out from underneath. So affection does not rest it is not about being popular making people get up and move when they dont want to telling them the first thing we have to do with a clean uniform is to jump in the mud puddle you want them to be reluctant to hit the deck youre not doing things that make you popular but that youve been honest with your troops and if they trust you they will stick with you for example deep inside city be watched boys taken half way through and the enemy is on the run and were told to pull out and then the Television Camera is put into someones face the reporter says this is terrible you must feel terrible you lost your buddies it is terrible now youre told to feel that he was a slow talking kid he just looked at the camera doesnt matter, go somewhere else and kill him. It shows the spirit of these young folks, young men and women who sign a blank check payable to all of you in this room who protect this experiment we call america but i would also tell you if we hadnt been honest, havent kept him informed, if he didnt trust us he could have said it is terrible. When morale goes down in a combat unit you know right away you will lose more people. It builds on the trust and respect that is not popularity. The study of men who graduated in college in 1940, what correlates with success . It wasnt socioeconomic status, it was relationship with mother and the men who knew how to give it to their men, we are a deep emotional reservoir. Was the first battle of falluja. In a war filled with a lot of unpleasant moments, we were given orders to take a town and as i remember you didnt like being told to take it, how do you march yourself personally through an operation you think is a mistake . Explaining a little background, the enemy was rising up the sunni uprising against us, a guy named zarqawi had plenty of help and we were outnumbered, in Southern California to come in, to take over the district from the second airborne division, in the battlefield, have to be upset about this sort of stuff, wandered into a town called falluja, they were burnt and their bodies hung up, people very angry in this town. If we knew we would get a hold of the tribal elements, the people who had done it and we get the bodies back. We want to do it with rage into homes, and tied into a city of 50,000 people but after a couple days of arguing about this you received the order, move the guns to falluja and stay in the fight. I knew my boss and the boss above him agreed with me, they fought the good fight with washington. Lets do it. I am going to do this as well is if i thought of the plan, you have to embrace it because you go into Something Like that halfway people are going to suffer. I only have two assault battalions, innocent people evacuated, we went in swinging, the qualification we put on it, dont start me. The enemy is in very effective information warfare. Utility rounds crashing into falluja. We never fired one artillery round in the first battle of falluja. The helicopter gunships gave us what we needed. If we were doing that on bbc, footage that they call trailers or something, with hand grenade range apart, ordered to pull back. Sometimes life doesnt go the way you want it to go. You give it 100 . They are busting through walls. How do you command . You laid out clearly what you want. The commanders intent is what it is called, at the least cost to the innocent as possible and i want to move quickly with the two assault battalions and bring in more as soon as possible. We knew they hadnt gotten ready, a value of doing it this way. Then you go around and talk to the assault units. You would literally pull them together in small groups and explain it. Then go back and forth and if you could draw out of them what would concern them you would have a unit ready to go and that is the leaders job. Once you made that clear, if you are welltrained, then you take the hands off the steering wheel, take it off and give the initiative, trust your young mcos, young officers keep social energy going, calling for the support, the young in seos doing their job, blow holes in the sides of buildings, so they dont have to go anyway that is boobytrapped. In the marines, command and control. On the front lines going to talk to wounded marines, how did it happen, get feedback from 100 different directions, take your hands off the wheel after you state what needs to be done. The men were huddled in these fields, and hear each others teeth chattering. Have you felt that fear on the course of your career in the battlefield. Absolutely. You feel it. There are things we can do to overcome it. We will slow some things down, nothing strange about fear, it is part of every fight. They are well enough trained, what drives you forward, you are going to be very tired, cant even explain to you some of you in here know what i am referring to. The fear is going to be there coupled with the fatigue that goes beyond words. There is going to be a sense at times of doom and acceleration going back and forth moment by moment and adrenaline is pumping pretty soon. You are pretty tired out. It doesnt work. What keeps you going really is that affection, that love for one another that i dont care what happens, i am not going to leave him uncovered so you are back on your knee as he goes forward and the muscle memory kicks in. That level of commitment when they come in, you going to fight with a lot of confidence. After the battle of falluja you were ordered back to the states or just your time in iraq came up . So you wrote a book. This was an intellectually revolutionary document, what was it like writing a book when the marines were fighting, it was part of the rotation but what was the process behind that . Revolutionized doctors. Guest it took advantage of Lessons Learned that this is the normal behavior of a learning organization. Of the organizations learning you bring your people back, and brigadier generals in two stars and next is three stars. We had to write something. The staff did it and we said okay, and the house of representatives. That works so well. We turned up the book very quickly and the most important thing in it to me was something called design. Go back to einstein when confronting how to save the earth how would he compose his thinking and allegedly, given one hour to save the world i would spend 55 minutes defining the problem, save the world in 5 minutes. The marines defined the problem chapter. And school districts, wherever you are, at the jesuit level of satisfaction, dont go charging into a war, and what do we do. That is not a good idea. And we learned a lot there. And the weapons, the uniforms. And we turn it around. And my favorite passes of the book, you are functionally illiterate. You have time to read and every day of your career. The marine corps expected it. The marine corps doesnt mind mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes, got chewed out and the marine corps doesnt look out for your ego when they go after you, they promoted me every time and the marine corps made it clear they expected me to study but didnt expect me not to make mistakes. For all of you, you are all going to be leaders if you want to be. That is the opportunity you will have. On the job and families, make sure you know the difference between mistake and lack of discipline. In the naval service, the marines, if you run the ship on the rocks you will get hammered. This is varsity, youre going down and if youre a senior you will go out. As long as it was not moral turpitude. But a mistake, human beings make mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes. Let me say how great a mistake i made. In the middle of the open desert, i command 1250 sailors, marines and arabs in my battalion, going in the middle of an open desert i get my battalion surrounded, that is almost impossible. I was at the top of my game and it was the wrong game. As i went into this and you know when your mortar guys are setting up four mortars shooting you are not brilliant. Later on, they got me out of that too and i was Walking Around just checking to see if we still had it. I messed up. Got called over to headquarters because we have to break through to kuwait city tonight, they are murdering innocent kuwaitis, the iraqi army is retreating in front of us and they were committing atrocities, you got to stop them. It is going to be difficult, four Lieutenant Colonels in kuwait city, when we got done, going back to our units, here are the orders he called over and says jim, walked over, you learn something today . Yes. Didnt have to rub it in, just make sure i knew that he saw that it was a big deal but didnt make a big deal of it. He thought that is enough. Im going into another attack, dont need a song and dance about tactics. I learned the lesson. If you can help people get through mistakes and learn them as learning opportunities it doesnt in any way accept black of discipline and moral turpitude or Something Like that but lets not have a no mistakes world. I went to jail twice before i went into the marines and the marines for gave that too. Host when you make a decision to make a decision that is not a mistake and there are losses do you torture yourself about it . Or moveon . You do not forget when your lads lose their lives for what you did and you just have to live with it. Host two final questions that are political. First is about president obama relieved you of command and there were clear places in the book you did not think they were providing the right civilian leadership, describe the relationship and your overview thoughts of him. Guest i found him curious. I would be in meetings with him. You heard when we were introduced that at times military leaders have to bring wars, the grim realities into the discussion with politicians who are trying to go for peace and prosperity and healthcare and education and all the things we care about. We defend the country so it can have those things so we have to bring that thinking into decisions made in war which is completely alien to what we are going to try to do in this beautiful democracy to bring the harmony of our Team Together because i hope we are. With president obama, i thought if we pull the troops out in the Intelligence Community, the cia kicked off the briefing and before i went to the discussions in the white house and they said they would brief and say heres what the enemy will do and all of this and one time im sitting there and all my admirals and generals are sitting in back of the room in the cia briefers are briefing me and sometimes wouldnt say anything for a minute or two after a brief. My guys are smiling and someone will break the silence pretty sooner the young lady leaving the brief from cia said let me put it this way. You pull our troops out at the end of the year and by the summer of 2014, this was in 2011, by summer of 2014, an Al Qaeda Group stronger than ever, more well resourced than ever and more vicious than ever will come out. Im not sure which one, i think i know who it is, im not going to tell you what i think i know, i am telling you they will come and you will have to put troops back in. Our Intelligence Community regardless of anything you read in the newspaper in terms of other peoples assessments, one of the best in the world if not the best. Maybe not in each region but it is the top. I would carry that message in, on the issues of iran, the president decided i would go and ladies and gentlemen, the words are you serve at the pleasure of the president , written into the commission you get. I bear the president no rancor. He had the right to do it, those words have to mean something, i left in 2013 and 14 months later we had to go in with troops, millions of people turned into refugees that the cia briefer had briefed on, 50,000 dead and wounded in the first month of what was going on, cities falling, girls as young as 8, and 7 years old being made slaves with the strategic decision so i gave what i thought, if you believe in the constitution, uphold the constitution then keep faith with it and carry out orders of the civilians unless you think they are immoral. I thought it was strategically unsound, the elected commanderinchief and you do not think about telling civilians when we are going to war or not because you have to deal with it. Final question before we get to your question. On this bookstore roughly 500 journalists have suv dish on donald trump and the batting average is 0500. I am going to try. I heard the argument why you dont want to discuss the current president , that military people should not discuss a sitting president , you have no military experience, you were a civilian political appointee so im not aware political appointees and cabinet secretaries, that there has been much hesitancy about not talking about a sitting president. Isnt that the right president to serve . We are formed by formative experiences. You write for the brand and the brand, u. S. Constitution says if a man is elected, woman is elected, commanderinchief they are the commanderinchief. Secondly, republican or democrat president calls you and says i want you to do something you dont sit upon the wall of the castle ringing your hand or say should i do it or not . Just go to work. If you think you are ready to do the job, roll up your sleeves, go in and give it your best shot. When you leave an administration over a policy difference and you write that policy difference in a public letter and lay it out then you said why you left, that is all you did over alliances or who is our adversaries and i was upfront about it and had a straightforward talk with the president. He and i alone in the oval office, we had a straightforward talk walking out of the office. It was not an adversarial relationship. People thought i was doing things behind his back. I was very open, we would have lunch most weeks when we were both in town, and we were always right up front with each other and we have 1 million troops, many of them are deployed at the, tonight and in afghanistan, they dont need a former cabinet official distracting from what the secretary of state, secretary of defense are doing right now. I dont believe it is helpful. The french call it a duty of quiet for a wild. I am not against coming out and talking about strategy or policy disagreements and i did it with the last several president s. I dont believe people with military background could come out and make political assessments of civilian leaders, George Washington at newburgh said you will not do what you are trying to do here and they have a legitimate gripe for a reason. They went out and said you will not do it. General bradley, a great army general, a general retired his uniform he should retire his tongue when it comes to political matters. When i was introduced and walked out and talked to some of you many people called me general. I am no longer a general but in many peoples minds im still a general. When the time comes that our military people start going out if they want to run for office i am all for it, okay, that is okay. And take part in partisan politics and start lining up on this person versus that person, the most confidence of the American People in the pew polls for a reason were apolitical. When we start getting into the politics of it i think the bipartisan nature, 87 of republican and democrats, representatives, congressmen and senators for recordbreaking budget last december before i left. Do you think that would have happened if we were politicizing the department of defense . Senator vandenberg, michigan, late 1940s, rightwing republican senator challenged in his home district, why are you working that terrible democrat, president truman, the defense of our country is nonpartisan. The quote you here is politics ends at the waters edge. I stay with that tradition. I hear the other, but as carter, good friend, my predecessor, under president obama refused to engage in political discussions and would order the military officers sitting next to him on capitol hill not to answer a question a congressman was asking because it was purely political. We have got to keep the military out of this. None of us have fear of the military moving into the political realm in an authoritative way. Most countries are not like that. I have gone on too long. [applause] we will move from the questions i wrote on no cards and here are your questions. The military award for physical courage. Is there a way to give awards for moral courage . I think the rewards for moral courage are promotion, by the time you get up in rank in the armed forces you to get promoted for your moral courage, not just because you know how to do the science of war, the art of war. I have said on many Selection Boards as you get higher in rank, who is going to be promoted to captain and a 4star general the surest way to get passed over, easiest way to be told we are not going to promote that guy where that gal is if they have shown lack of integrity or moral courage. It is the selection because any institution gets the behavior rewards. Of the institution gets rotten and you have a problem with this and it has happened in institutions and happen to corporations you have to be alert to this, to keep managerial integrity but the way of the award we would give would be promotion. As junior officer in cyber, the cost to dod as a result. You have to make certain your organization is fit for its time. A few years ago, we set up us Cyber Command which was combat and command. I commanded forces command and commanded us Central Command, the one fighting the wars in the middle east. We have a command and had it for quite some time, us cybercommand works on that issue. What you have now are people being promoted, in ceos and officers for their skill in that area. What you have to do if you see technology coming forward like this you organize the institution so you start promoting people based on their capability. We have been doing that for some time. Us Central Command in the Central Operations room, you see the intelligence people sitting there and the guy coordinating the strikes from the air force, coordinating Army Missiles and the cyberfolks sitting next to them is like just another one of the supporting arms as we integrate it all. Civilians sitting at the higher headquarters because we have not grown all that but it is coming fast, young people coming in, some of the girls had more tattoos than a sailor in the fleet, some of the guys had more earrings than any girl i dated. But they were darn good at their job and we loved having them there and they were great. What is the question for the United States . The greatest threats, in terms of this world where we focus a lot on terrorism, terrorism is going to be with us. Is an ambient threats not going away real soon. It reflect other things. We are going to have to fight it and set conditions of education and economic opportunities, it will reduce the need for people to think they have got to go of violent way and we have to fight the rest of them but in this world today the bigger threats are what i call Great Power Competition with russia and china that want to give Veto Authority to themselves over surrounding nationss economic decisions, security decisions, diplomatic decisions. China, their president would stand in the rose garden with president obama and say they would not militarize, and then put weapons into the spratly islands, russia that would invade crimea and take it over. Russia under putin is not the russia we want it to be. That is where i would see it. Terrorism goes on. We have china and russia, russia, a declining power. In some way that makes them more dangerous in the short term but in the longterm as i told my chinese counterpart we are going to have to find a way to manage our differences because we are two Nuclear Armed powers and dont want to be as stupid as the europeans twice in the 20th century and engulfed the world in a dog on war. It just has got to go to war. It hasnt always gone to war but in the nuclear age he would have written a different book. Trust me on this. Im old enough. There is a bigger threat to me. Go back and read abraham lincolns talk in 1858 when he talks about there is no army coming from europe or africa that is going to come over and crossed the blue ridge and the ohio river. Even if they have a bonaparte, napoleon, little short guy. They cant do it. If we are going to destroy this country we are going to do it to ourselves and the bigger concern i have is twofold. One, people with my color hair are not maintaining fiscal discipline of the country and expect we can turn this over to you young folks, this increasing debt every day, we are not going to tax ourselves, we are going to take these benefits on board and you are going to deal with it, we will transfer to you and when you get old you will find this big debt. How big is the debt . Recordbreaking budget for the pentagon last year, recordbreaking, probably by next year we will spend more than that every year servicing the debt, spending that money in moscow or beijing or riyadh or tokyo or wherever it is going to the people who bought our bombs, who noticed the money, send it overseas. No nation in history has retained its freedom, liberty, military security that couldnt keep its fiscal house in order but even more more worrisome is what lincoln warned us about. We are separating into these little warning tribes who wont talk with each other, contemptuous of others, we dont think the person we disagree with might be right once in a while and as we go into this more contentious role we become almost perpetually in elections, i say i am smart, youre dumb, i am right, you are wrong, not always civil. I accept that. Welcome to democracy, kind of raucous. It isnt the right model to stay in governing where you try to get yourself elected. Once the election is over you have to go into governance and governance is about unity, not dividing. We have to come together and those 55 minutes lower sleeves up to define the problems, lets take time to do that and fall it. That worries me more than anything. This is a problem with all not just look what is going on in london right now. This is becoming dangerous. We have to understand the experiment of democracy can fail if we dont think it is valuable and precious and defend it. Host what advice would you give your younger self . Guest well. [laughter] guest dont mess with the police. [laughter] guest probably for you young folks in the audience dont wait until you have my color hair to do something. You are pretty impatient now and that is a good thing, do your homework and make a difference now. Dont wait until later, we dont need to be running for national office, what could be better in the local area, young people growing up will have good education. Run for city manager or become the mayor, do things where you are rolling up your sleeves or putting her thumbprint on it because we need that right now. Im part of the luckiest generation. I was raised by the greatest generation. Im not so sure what we are turning over to you is as good as what we got from the greatest generation. We need to step up quickly and start challenging people with questions and be inpatient, we want some governance going on here. We are no longer accepting you can just sit on your hands when there are problems. Take the time to listen to others and make certain that you defined the problems well enough that you can go to work and solve them. Host do you believe the taliban deal will result in more or less stability in afghanistan . Guest im not going to comment. I dont know the back channel. We have some great negotiators but we are going to have to decide what we stand for, what we wont stand for. I went in after 9 11 and remember kites being flown over the stronghold the taliban had held. I remember how proud the children were, especially the girls, they walked on the street on the first day of School Walking by heavily armed us soldiers, marines, sailors, seals, foreign troops, other allies came to our aid in america. We carry our values forward and they could go to school. It worries me that if we dont think those kinds of rights are valuable for everybody in the world, nothing we have to be the worlds policeman, that is what alliances are for but we need to keep our moral voice and our leadership foremost. Host can you discuss the interplay of Climate Change in National Security and what do you think of Solutions Like the Carbon Dividend plan your hoover colleague secretary shultz. Guest the Carbon Dividend plan makes sense but let me talk for a moment to those who are skeptical about Climate Change. I used to tell people im not going to get into who caused it because i was military, we have to deal with it, there is now a new open body of water that from the Military Point of view we have to deal with because the sea ice is no longer where it used to be. This is just science. Im not going to get into the politics of it but now that i am in a position where i am no longer just in the military side of it i would say to those who are skeptical, even if it might not be the case, if there is a chance that it is Climate Change and it could be as potentially catastrophic as something is could be wouldnt it be good to have an insurance policy . Wouldnt you just i havent had an accident driving my car ever, still have insurance on my car. I am trying to find Common Ground moving forward. Why on earth would we take a chance with something that big when you can see the sea ice receding in ways it has never receded before. I would work on defining the problem in a way that is irrefutable. At least 2 about 80 . We live in such a skeptical age that that is a magnificent number if you could reach it. In terms of National Security theres a lot of reason to look at what happened in syria, as relating to a drought. It always looks like a drought over there. But a drought that drove many false Small Farmers off the land, not enough seats in the classroom, people are angry, a fruit cellar set himself on fire in tunis and the anger through the arab world was you can draw some conclusions that this has indirectly fed into much of the discontent. My question to the skeptics would be wouldnt you at least take out an insurance policy on this. Host kierkegaard said happiness is to will one thing wholeheartedly and your life is more coherent than any life i have encountered. The marine corps has been your community, sacred mission, your belief system, your moral community, out of active service in the marine corps, out of the secretary of defense unless Bernie Sanders asks you to come back to the arena. What is your calling out . The reason i wrote the book was i wanted to pass on what i have learned along the way. It was the absolute pure joy of serving alongside marines that kept me there. It was more than just the marines. I was answerable to all of you in this room, spending of your money, the combat we went through and i had a love affair with the u. S. Constitution and i enjoyed reading the thing and find great things and find Something Else that is great and it is the idea that this is so precious that it probably cant even be taught to you. You sent it as you read it and think of these young and old guys starting with the declaration and when they sign that, king george catches them they are dead. Thats all it is. That is the wakings did it and for us to do this today, this experiment seems so precious to me that i will commit whatever i can to help young people become the leaders they want to be. I dont care if it is in business or their diocese or their small town or wherever it is. I dont have all the answers but here is what worked for me. Host i dont know whether to thank you secretary jim mattis, and or jim mattis . Jim mattis will do fine. [applause] thank you. I think we are done. [applause] thank you. [inaudible conversations] the new cspan online store has booktv products, check them out. The what is new for booktv and all the other cspan products. Weeknights this week featuring booktv programs on cspan2. Neil gorsuch reflects on his 30 year career and offer spots on the judiciary and u. S. Constitution. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recounts her time on the high court at the book festival. We will hear from the federalists Molly Hemingway and Judicial Crisis Network examining the confirmation of brett kavanaugh, watch tuesday night on cspan2 and enjoy booktv this week and every weekend on cspan2. The managing director of the International Monetary fund speak at the annual ceo Council Meeting in washington dc