Should the military be used for domestic unrest such as the recent protests . Should the u. S. Be terminating many of our arms control treaties and even contemplating resuming Nuclear Testing . Should the names of Confederate Military leaders be removed from u. S. Military bases and other statue be removed from our Public Places . To address these questions and many more, today we will have a unique conversation between two recent secretaries of defense, doctor robert gates and general james mattis. As a bipartisan secretary of defense, secretary robert gates served under president george w. Bush and barack obama. He is the author of a new book, exercise of power americas failures, successes and a new path forward in the post cold war world. Doctor gates is an officer in the u. S. Air force and spent 27 years in the cia. He served as the cia director and became the first career officer in cia history to move from entrylevel employee to head the agency. Secretary gates served as a member of the National SecurityCouncil Staff in four different administrations and for eight president s of both political parties. For his numerous professional competitions, secretary gates was awarded the president ial medal of freedom, the nations highest civilian award by president obama. Hes also a threetime recipient of the distinguished intelligence medal, one of the cias most prestigious honors. In conversation with insidious general james mattis. General mattis served as our 26th secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019 and is now the distinguished fellow at Stanford Universitys hoover institution. General mattis served over 40 years in the marine corps starting as an infantry officer. He later served as commander of the u. S. Joint forces command and nato supreme allied commander for transformation. General mattis directed the military applications of more than 200,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, coast guardsmen and marines and allied forces across the middle east as commander of the u. S. Central command. He commanded forces in the persian gulf, the war in afghanistan and the iraq war. Hehe has been outspoken recenty about the president s views of military troops in domestic unrest in washington. Please join me now in welcoming doctor robert gates and general james mattis for this very unique conversation. Host thank you it is a pleasure to be here with the Commonwealth Club, the club that has been devoted to finding truth for over 100 years. We all recognize doctor gates during his leadership role with a wealth of background. Secretary gates is my former boss, predecessor in office and inspiring role model. He was likened in one recent review is the rare footsoldier that rises to high command. Secretary gates, in reading your book, one that i would be reassured with required reading for president s and cabinet officers when they come into office, i was struck by you attribute in a large part of americas 25 year decline in status and prestige to the failure of postcold war president s and congress to recognize resource and effectively used what you call the arsenal of nonmilitary instruments of power. Can you explain this fundamental failure and the significance of the title that you chose for your buck . Guest first of all, thank you for participating in this and thanks to the Commonwealth Club for inviting me. The book began with a question in my mind of how the United States had gone from a position of supreme power, probably unrivaled since the roman empire in every dimension of power in 1983 to a country today that is set by challenges everywhere. I thought about how did that happen. How did we get here . So i began looking at all of the major foreignpolicy challenges they had and thinking about what they had done and what they had not done that contributed to the decline in our role in the world in our power in the world. We came up with a set of nonmilitary instruments of power that they had played such an Important Role in our success in the cold war against the soviet union and had largely been neglected and whether after the end of the cold war. At the time that we continue to fund the military, we basically dismantled all of the nonmilitary instruments of power power, from diplomacy to economic leverage to Strategic Communications and more. We can go into that later. And as i looked at the situations come at these challenges from somalia and haiti in 1993 and others right up to the relationship with russia and china today, north korea, it occurred to me we have failed in many respects to figure out how to compete with these powers outside of the military realm. And the reality is of the 15 challenges i write about, i considered 13 to the failures. Thats why in the title the word failure comes first. There are a couple of successes and there are some lessons to be learned from those as well, but we had a lot of problems during the 27 year period, and i would conclude by saying the war in iraq and afghanistan both began with very quick military victories and the problem that identified whether it was iraq and afghanistan were somalia or haiti or others was once we have achieved military victory, we then changed our mission. We then decided to move to trying to bring democracy and reform the governments of those countries and thats where we ran into failure. Host secretary gates, id like to go more deeply into what you just mentioned, the symphony of power. I got a few notes from your book, but can you give an overview of the type of instruments they were referring to anywhere they might be more applicable perhaps her most likely than using the Military Form of power. And if they are not played, why arent they. Historically, what are these instruments and what do you look to to bring to the forefront . Guest the coercive instrumentforefront . Guest co. Te instruments are the military and i would say also cyber. In my opinion, cyber has actually become the most effective weapon that a nation can have because it can accomplish military, political and economic harm to ones adversary. Its difficult to identify who perpetrated the attack. It takes time to figure out attribution and the more damage was done, the more important it is to identify where the ones or zeros came from and so, cyber is a huge player now in a way that has never been before. It can dismantle or disarm weapons. It can redirect and shut down infrastructure and countries, so its a very versatile weapon and it doesnt take the kind of enormous expenditure of dollars pour money that a Nuclear Enterprise or chemical or biological threat would represent. So i think cyber is a very important one and we have been pretty good at developing it for our military purposes, but i think that we have not taken advantage of it in an offensive way with respect to either political or economic targets. Another important instrument is clearly economic measures. These can be both carrots and sticks. The truth is as i make the point in the book, weve developed the sticks part of the economic instrument pretty well. Weve levied sanctions on any country that looks at us cross eyed, and its become actually very complicated for a lot of companies because weve got so many sanctions against countries figuring out how to do business internationally and stay within the u. S. Law and become a full price enterprise for these companies. So we got the sticks part down there pretty well. Embargoes, tariffs, sanctions and so on. Where weve fallen down and ones have real capability is how do we use economic assistance or our economy as an asset to encourage and induce other countries to do what we would like for them to do were to follow policies we would like for them to follow, whether its loans at discounts, economic concessions, trade concessions and so on. We are very good as i said at sanctions. We are not figuring out how we might advantage of someone dealing with us. President clinton and president bush were both very good with africa when they arranged debt relief for a number of african countries back in the 1990s and early 2000 is coming and that helped a lot of african countries, but that is a rare example of us using economic measures as an instrument of power. Strategic communications or, as we stick with the cold war, propaganda. How do we get our message around the world. The chinese have developed this to an extraordinary degree. Several years ago, hu jintao allocated several hundred billion dollars for the chinese to Strategic Communications network around the world. We on the other hand in 1998 dismantled the United StatesInformation Agency and talked what we call Public Diplomacy into the corner of the state department. Various elements of the government to Strategic Communications, but theres no coherent strategy. Each kind of goes its own way, and they also lack the capabilities and reach that the chinese have. Theres a variety of other instruments, jim, but i will mention. Things like intelligence and how we use it with other countries, science and technology, our higher education, our culture, the use of nationalism as we are. Co. Watch russia and china interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. Weve failed to use their own nationalistic feelings to help build their resistance to the chinese and russians and others are doing. Religion is an important instrument. We havent thought about it in that way, but religion has played a big part in international affairs, particularly since the end of the cold war. And all you have to do is look at the role of religion and motivating to see that it has real power. We need the military and cia but why dont we summon instruments of inspiration that are so strong in america . What is the reluctance to use nonmilitary . It is a tough question to answer. Part of that congress has been reluctant to font on defend the nonmilitary instruments going back to the end of the cold war. But congress wanted us to establish the us agency for International Development and president clinton stop that but still diminished usaid and to be starved of resources except a couple of brief periods during the george w. Bush administration but congress hates Development Assistance they are considered a waste of time if we spend money why not here at home and how that benefits the United States its a big part of the reason the reluctance of the congress and in all honesty the most of all for administrations to push for such funding. The irony for me as when the congress has become more resistant to military overseas they also refused to make non robust instruments i could take place of that military activity. You brought up the war in iraq and mentioned the change of mission or Mission Creep so we go into iraq and you write as happened so often is lack of imagination how to access nongovernment civilian expertise to strengthen nonmilitary capabilities they have no appreciation of the importance of the private sector as an instrument of power. First recognize that it has something to contribute and then figure out how to make it work. It frustrated all of us in the department of defense through all afghan war experience was the relatively few number of civilian experts we were engaged in nationbuilding with very few civilian experts in country making that happen. But at the peak of our iraq we had 170,000 troops in the country with 360 civilians and all of those in the entire country of iraq so one of the things that i propose that got no traction that what we could provide help with was helping both the afghans and iraqis in terms of improving farming techniques , taking care of their herds , and because they are both world countries. So i suggested to the state department go to the land grant universities like texas a m i knew what they were doing around the world as far as faculties working in inhospitable and insecure situations go to these universities and asked them to help and augment what we are trying to do many members are already in the countries so how can we help them and provide funding and we also had the advantage of the National Association of landgrant universities with a man named Peter Mcpherson from Michigan State also under president reagan to be a partner but nothing ever happened. Similarly to partner with the private sector is to figure out how we will counter the 1 trilliondollar program of infrastructure building ports and airports and highways and sports arenas around the world. A lot of them are White Elephant projects. That countries have to pay for and then sign contracts with china that they do the construction. We cannot compete with that through their state owned enterprises can find the cash to fund the projects. We just dont have that. We are not structured that way but we have a private sector investing all over the world and how can United States partner with private companies and incentivize them to invest and bring jobs and Environmental Concerns and sustainability the end up being useless or saddle the countries with huge amounts of debt. We dont do much in the way to incentivize companies to move down the path and that is a resource we could make better use of. We have these churches and charities and others that do projects around the world whether in terms of health to get rid of diseases like the work of the Gates Foundation and others often they dont want to much to do with the government but is there a way we can augment their activities to work in partnership . And how do we Work Together . There isnt much done to move down the road. These are just three examples we havent been very imaginative to leverage our strength and translate that into efforts of what i would call shaping the International Environment to Server National interest. We dont have to be a altruistic it is the responsibility of the president and the government to advance American Interest in protect them around the world. But that means you have to shape the International Environment and these are the tools you can use. We have tried on many occasions to shape the environment not very imaginatively or successfully frankly. We have tried to help multiple countries gain peace and stability but columbia worked. Why does that stand out why did it work over failures. It was a success under multiple president s. In the nineties columbia was on the verge of coming on becoming a criminal state, a narco state. The fark was on the verge of taking control and the government but our efforts in working with the colombians to be successful in controlling and defeating the farc we had a very strong and honest person and president uribe was determined to beat the farc and he was committed to democratic principles and the rule of law and determined to lead the fight with considerable risk to himself surviving a number of assassination attempts. There already basic institutions in columbia they were week but had been established and we could help strengthen those institutions inside columbia including the police and the military but also the judicial system over the course of the colombian partnership the Justice Department trained 40000 judges. The third reason for success i give credit to congress. They limited the number of americans who could be in columbia at any given time to help the government we were limited 400 military and 400 contractors then that eventually rose at 800 and that was set. So they had to fight the fight themselves and we had to be limited to supporting them and training them to become better to carry the fight to the farc we couldnt take over the enterprise because of the limits congress put on us we were there in support of the colombian government and that was another reason for success it was up to the colombians to solve the problem we could help that we would it run the show for them. Also this plan had bipartisan support in congress and was funded over a period of ten years by three successive president s so we had the time to make things work with the bipartisan support to get the funding so for about 10 billion over ten or 12 year. , we help the colombians put down the farc and regain control of their own country. Originally it was sold as counter narcotics to limit the cocaine coming back into the United States. We try to bring cultural and political change the country to make it more like us to bring those democratic principles with honest government and without realizing we were trying to change thousands of years of history and the fact our own democracy evolved over time we are still facing problems created at the beginning of the United States with the race issues we are dealing with today. And we have been working on it for over two centuries. So thinking we force this to other countries is one reason why we have been involved in these wars but also from Winston Churchill and in late 44 he was approached of overthrowing the dictatorship and that was very supportive of the allies were trying to accomplish and they wanted him to install the democratic government he said democracy is not a harlot to be picked up on the street and the principal still exists, you cannot force a country to build a democracy. Iraq has a rudimentary democracy today they are probably the only democratic Arab Government in the entire middle east. That the cost has been extraordinarily high and a lot of the iraqis still do not believe that she had dominated government serves their interest particularly the kurds and the sunnis so there is a tough road ahead but the failures in these countries was tr