And some of the contemporary issues that we are facing with regard to the military so blessed start about the book which is how the United States is dependent on military to solve problems. That note we are too dependent but we are very dependent one of the things that blew my mind when i got to the pentagon but when i got there like Many Americans assume they prepare to fight wars in the traditional sense to blow stuff up been shooting at people but obviously the pentagon does do that but it was amazing how much else people now do whether planning programs to prevent Sexual Violence in the condo to programs encourage michael enterprise with afghan within or producing a radio call in show name it somebody is to get. But then this half amazing and inspiring and have scary you talk about your experiences and the pentagon but picked up on how it did you end up at the pentagon . [laughter] your parents were activists and that was the last place they probably expected to find their daughter. So talkedabout coming to the pentagon and what led you to write a book about that experience . Guest and never thought i would marry officer but in central park sitting on the grass celebrating the end of the vietnam war. And cut to protest what i was 10 bayonne requirement for the draft but what ended up happening that was very critical of the u. S. Military is ended up working at law school were for a humanrights organizations and i found myself in places like kosovo during the civil war because. And those forces used airpower to stop the eminent ethnic cleansing campaign. The intervention bring to a close the of brutal civil war. So i was meeting lots of people in the military and to be up close of the of military power could be used for good a and it shook apply own stereotypes and left be much more aware of uncomplicated story so for me that led to an interest of role of the military am post conflict reconstruction with the book that i did previously of rule of law in the wake of conflict but with the pentagon i was so eager to work in the Obama Administration ascending emails to everybody i will sweep the floor or make the coffee to be a part of this one of the people that i ecl was nominated to be the undersecretary for policy issue was the first one to say okay we can make something work. Host describe your job for what range of issues. Org is that this interesting portfolio. I worked obviously for human Rights Groups and military o dash minute training and laos also a writer with a weekly column and when she brought me in she said i dont quite know what you should do but start by being dash speechwriter with congressional testimony and we will figure out as time goes by. For me that was a terrific education but the good thing for someone to say you have to learn a little bit about everything to go out and talk to everybody because of a move from an issue to issue a few are with afghanistan in your meeting be experts next week to meet all the piracy experts so is a crash course of all the major policy issue so over time michelle was a fantastic boss that said what a deal want to be doing and why . How do you want me to help you . And overtime i said onetwo work on human rights issues so i began to work on those as well which was satisfying host in that set of experience obviously edies ideas came throughout your history so what in the set of experiences crystallized that the love that you talk about with the first half of the dilemma . Were their experiences there then started to crystallize the problem quick. Yes. One of the many portfolios scitex one at the pentagon was looking at the Defense Departments strategic Operations Program the Defense Department was doing everything you could think of from peace concerts in africa to producing soap operas and comic books and more stuff in the covert realm designed to influence. I was impressed by this range of projects and the people but also couldnt help but think why is the pentagon doing this . That was the attitude of my colleagues at the state department and would get quite think why are you doing this . You dont know what you are doing. We should be doing this. Did play up front and central the pentagon is doing it because somebody feels United States needs to be doing it. Whether that is right or wrong is another question. The civilian agencies usaid have ben defunded over many decades and have lost a lot of their ability to put on programs that maybe they had at the peak of the cold war that means the white house and congress turn to the military because you can send any buddy in the world ban on short notice they can settle what to go that is not true of civilian agencies. So the more we look around to say that note, and the repackaged they come from sartre one dash cyberspace cyberspace, terrorism if we want to respond then United States has to be doing everything look at Economic Development and cyberspace. If you ask of military the less you need the civilian agencies the more you have to fund the military and give resources the less that agencies can do and that is a vicious cycle. Secretary rice said reached secretary clinton try to strengthen the civilian rule in many of these areas are those efforts doomed to failure . Or it is there more we can be doing quite. Have mixed feelings. Like many liberals saying the military should not be doing this we should be rebuilding the capacity of the civilian sector it is how shocking little funding it gets compared to the military. If you talk maurer pessimistic but in the early years of the Obama Administration secretary of state Hillary Clinton a day allied of speeches that we have to restore more funding from the perspective of the secretary of defense they cannot do this job unless they have civilian partners. We want civilians to do that well but nothing happened. But eventually have found myself but if not then except the political reality that congress will not wake up one morning to say lets tripled of budget but, if that will not happen to take on the wide range of tasks with those areas of expertise to become resident within the i military with profound implications for how we recruit or train or manage military personnel. How you do that well above military is given a task for the trading in the Reef Resources where you are more worried quick. Also things like cyber that is closer to traditional competencies. When it comes to the governance and Economic Development that the military is floundering in part because it is just hard. But that being said, we obviously still recruit and train military personnel as if the world has not changed that much since 1955. Plots of people try hard what to we need to do differently . But i got myself into hot water if you years ago i wrote a tongueincheek column arguing military should start recruiting at a erp conferences a. Arp. I was joking but the u. S. Military still recruits as if it is the 19th century and we need one young men. When some of the military personnel so what those infantrymen have done for centuries. Eighty aeronaut in combat. Even those combat roles starting with that governance project for the Development Project but many of the Service Members will be asked to do everything from writing computer code to designing video call in the soap operas. Where we still focusing recruiting energies for treatment . With those schools that skill sets how do we make sure that lets us bring people in and out that lets that military personnel go out to white cotton kugel works then comes back in without harm to their career be. The system is not serving us that well at a moment in time we need much more flexibility with a wide range of skills spinet the other major promised is how everything became more. And over time so with that issue and it was a complex landscape with the detention policy with the direct targeted attack with the war in iraq and of guinness and theres so much going on. What are the issues to get in there to make change back as a bystander like many other people were who watched in some horror as the u. S. Response to the september 11 attacks was purely a military response not so much they should not have been used but very early they made a decision to view all responses to the 9 11 attack to the Legal Framework within Armed Conflict. And the of Legal Framework in terms of International Law and domestic law is really different from the Legal Framework during peace or ordinary life. Sewed during peacetime the state is not supposed to go around killing people usually kill them if you put them on trial ras of the leverage judicial process in peacetime we have a lot of safeguards. We are very intolerant of government secrecy and require checks and balances. But wartime is the opposite. In peace time you are charged with murder in wartime you could get a medal you are supposed to do that you dont get prosecuted for killing the enemy because you are supposed to sell once you shift to that Legal Framework we tolerate a lot more government secrecy secrecy, coercion and the full force. Once the Bush Administration said terrorism is within that box and the legal outboard will apply then you have the u. S. Picking up people all out all but over the world bosnia and nigeria and the afghanistan to say we think they are terrorists and would send them to guantanamo theyre not entitled to lawyers were due process. So early official said way. We dont know food day are but with love lot of war you dont have to do much. You can say it is a war and it happens get over it. We started to drift into a world the magic act to call this war meant the u. S. Government was doing things that in any other universe would have bent shocking as literally kidnapping people off the streets with countries around the world we are not at war to imprison them without access to the due process often not even a college dean who we are keeping or why and that shocked me. Thenpresident Obama Campaign to on a platform to pull back the excess one of his very first acts after he was sworn and the tissue a series of executive orders banning torture saying he would close off guantanamo. So i came to the pentagon thinking he will fix this. Host end in 2009 you take a trip down to guantanamo . Guest it was very strange have you been there . It is very beautiful but barbwire and mahorn guards with this incredible beauty is a tropical island. But what struck me most other they and the real qualities of the resort by the sec by the sea, what struck me most that the problem with guantanamo was not guantanamo but the physical conditions for detainees from the state side presents listen. There were allegations when it was over but what was troubling about guantanamo people at that point word 18 by the United States eight years. No charge for most of them. No trial. And in increasingly around Governor Research suggesting they were picked by mistake and should not be there but yet they were there with no prospect of free these. That still shocks me a abundant when president obama eventually embraced the adl of indefinite detention. Host that is one thing that wanted to talk about some you come back from the trip and you write that you tried to write about this issue with your own chain of command but the alternatives to holding them indefinitely we could release them to electronic monitoring in the end of the risk of releasing potentially dangerous detainees is outweighed by those associated with prevention detention framework. So you go want to talk about how they fought to push that you point inside the interagency process inside the pentagon but in the end after some time you said i will give up. I am not making headway. I got absolutely nowhere. So talk about now with hindsight is a somebody who wants to make changes comes in with that idealism with that legal background and training that you had to go down that gives credibility . How can someone make change inside that system quick. It is incredibly hard. I am interested in hearing your own thoughts the tissue also a position inside the pentagon struggling to push forward various reforms some more stock. Qsr government is a massive bureaucracy there are good things about that in bad things but in many ways a break on crazy idea is because president s come and go and those political appointees, and go but people will be there for years and have a lot of experience and wisdom to put the brakes on craziness but on the other hand, they also put the brakes on good innovations and i think that particular issue of the detainee policy, it is hard to unwind that bureaucracy once created there was eight years of setting off the elaborate apparatus within the military to deal with the detainees peoples careers deeply invested in that to rollback turned out to be very hard when people were interested how we change this process . So it was bob down in the president ended up deciding he had other priorities Like Health Care reform and the capital he would have needed he wasnt willing maybe that was the right decision realizing what he cares about and what he had to juggle with other fish to fry p. Ended up dividing on this one. Another area you were involved with the pentagon to apply the Legal Framework was targeted attacks most people think of the drawn attacks. Utah in the book about drums but the drones but talk about that legal um framework but where that is troubling. It is the same set of reasons with the military does so many nontraditional things the world is complicated. The security threats now dont connie lee packaged it is rushhour or china or germany. That increasingly facing the threats that have nothing to do with those formal decisions to have a loosely organized network. They dont look like what we think of as crime to cause death or destruction on non scale with the use of military force by states. But if you decide, one way is to say we have a world of the whole continuum for the state conflict on one end it does look more like individual crime. How do we categorize that . We have a big area in between traditional war but we have legal system that does not allow for in between either picked one with this set or it is not in to get this set that are diametrically the opposite so if we decide and i dont know how, but what is an Armed Conflict . What is a war . Is that track a weapon . The airplane . The box cover . They killed a lot of people. What is a combat and . Somebody who doesnt belong to any military with planning and supporting with any plot that will eventually hurt people . Do have any special level . We have no idea so we have an arbitrary decision to consider this person a convent where some guy who may be up to something that we dont like . If we decide they are combatants in an Armed Conflict, there is nothing new nothing different then getting off about two shoot you dont have to have a court signoff. Lawful wartime killings of the enemy combatants medical or legal problem. The United States kills them wherever that may be the United States just murdered somebody based on secret evidence it will not acknowledge. But if you want to know the difference cutback is the profound dilemma instead of piling more and more into the war category and is much more convenient i dont have to give you the reason. Host one of the things that you write about of one thought this is up. Airtime to close a chapter in the back to that war and peace dichotomy but your argument that it is not this isnt the gap between war and peace but it is an during. Where do you think we go with this . Dec of way we can get back to the old way if there ever was . Orgy using we need to change how we think greg. We need to change how we think but the nearness of the vehicle categories was always overstated even during the last state on state world war ii when on the margins definitional problems people who ignore the laws of war. But what has happened in the seven decades since then, is the have gone from the situation of a lot of exceptions on the margins of what is overwhelming the norm at this point. Operates but the new stuff is not going away. All the technological changes are pushing in the opposite direction and we are going to have to figure out both operationally for the military and legally and morally and politically how do we operate in a world, how do we preserve the values we care about democratic accountability, rule of law, respect for individual, rights for liberty, how do we preserve the values request the old legal africanamerican waxer dont give up solutions, how do we come up with new sets of rules and thats hard, you know, i think thats the work of generations to figure that out but i think that if we dont do it, we are going to be in trouble. Im thinking relatively recently of the case where the u. S. Government we wanted to get out apple, for example, to be able to crack in into an iphone, of course, that went back and forth, the government said, dont worry, we found our own solution, thats one example of this space continuing. Host how do you think the private sector fit into this picture of what was traditionally a government fear . Guest right, its going to have to fit in, if nothing else, other states including states that we view as adversaries such as russia are being creative, exploding the illdefined space where you move between private and public actors and you dont always know who is doing what and doing military force, its all mixed together. We are going to have to get good at it, we are hampered by the fact that we are not an authoritarian state. We dont want to become one. Thats the challenge for us that we dont want to become one and the price that we pay if we become authoritarian, we are going to lose. The Public Private line, civilian military line, all of these are lines that we drew, humans drew. God didnt happened them down and said only peo