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GovDiscovery AI Podcast with Mike Shanley
[Repost Ep. 25; June 10th, 2024] General George W. Casey, Jr.
01:03:06
In this repost of a 2024 episode, General Casey shares his extensive experience in military leadership and the importance of integrating defense, diplomacy, and development in foreign aid efforts. He discusses the critical role of foreign aid in...
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the govdiscovery AI Podcast with Mike Shanley, your source for actionable insight into government markets and foreign policy. Gov Discovery AI leverages a decade of experience winning federal funding to deliver intel to sales proposal and capture teams working in defense and civilian markets. Now, here's your host, Mike Shanley.
- [00:20]
B
General Casey, it's really a privilege to have you here today and looking forward to hearing from you on development, diplomacy, defense, and your take on geopolitics and leadership. So thank you for taking some time to to join us today to to share your expertise.
- [00:38]
C
No, you're welcome, Mike. It's wonderful to be here. Hello to everybody out there in Zoom Land.
- [00:44]
B
So to give you all a bit of context on General Casey's background, he served 41 years in the US army, including as the Army Chief of Staff, where he was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is an officer, accomplished soldier, and authority on strategic leadership, which we'll get into today. As the Army Chief of Staff, he led one of the nation's largest and most complex organizations. Prior to this, from 2004 to 2007, he commanded the multinational force in Iraq, a coalition of more than 30 countries. Currently, he lectures internationally on leadership to the leaders of national multinational corporations. At business schools, he serves on corporate boards and numerous boards of organizations that support our servicemen and women, our veterans, their families. He's on the Board of Directors of the center for Global Development and he also teaches. He's a lecturer at the Joseph Corbell School of International Studies at the University of Denver, where we're both alumni. General Casey's published a book on strategic a book titled Strategic Reflections, Operation Iraqi Freedom, about his experience in Iraq and his two articles on leadership Leading in a Vuca World. General, I Apologize in Vuca World and Fortune Magazine and Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous Leadership. Lessons from Iraq. Chapter one, Changing Mindsets to Transform Security General Casey holds a Master's degree in International Relations from the University of Denver and serves as a senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States of Foreign Policy Think tank. So, General, again, thank you for being here. What I'd like to start out with is a quote from General Mattis. To paraphrase it basically, he talked about the importance of the State Department and USAID's budget. And I believe the expression was along the lines of if you cut there, if you don't fully fund the State Department, you need to buy more ammunition. You were there for that. Could you take a bit of time to set up the context of that? Often shared Quote, and then we'd love to just get into your thoughts on it too, but I think it would be great to hear the story around working that quote came from.
- [02:53]
C
Okay, great, Mike. And so, so I have been working with the US Global Leadership Coalition since shortly after I retired. And that's a group of retired private sector folks, State Department folks and military folks who strongly believe in the value of development funding as an instrument of our foreign policy. And what they do occasionally, a couple of times a year is they'll get a group of us together and then they'll schedule meetings with several members of Congress on both sides and we'll go around and we'll go in and talk to them and give our viewpoints on why it's so important to fund the foreign aid budget. Well, we just, we happened to be meeting with Senator Roger Wicker, who was, was actually in the Foreign Relations Committee meeting, but stepped out to talk to us. And so we had just pumped him up about the importance of the foreign aid budget. And he went right back into that hearing and asked General Mattis the question. And General Mattis nailed it. And so it was just, it wasn't, it was completely unplanned. But as we say often, I'd rather be lucky than good.
- [04:21]
B
So what, and what are your thoughts on that? And for those listening, usglc, a great organization, I'm a member as well, a great organization to follow both for insight and news on the foreign aid funding in the US Government, but also a great group that advocates for the, the importance of the State Department and USAID's budget. What are your views on that, General Casey, on the role of funding foreign aid and I don't know, conflict prevention, how that affects the military's role, but could you talk a bit about your thoughts on the importance of the foreign aid budget?
- [05:00]
C
Yeah, obviously, I think it's very important. I've seen the impact of aid both in Bosnia, Kosovo and in Iraq. And I've, I've seen it from afar and other places like Africa, where I actually went on a trip a few years ago with the USGLC to Ethiopia and Tanzania. And we saw firsthand the impact that US Foreign aid can, can make. And what, you know, you always bring back stories, memories from the trip. And I remember we're talking to this Ethiopian farmer and the aid, working with a private company was sending out, was passing out fertilizer that significantly increased the ability of plants there to grow in, in a dry climate. And the farmer said that it allowed him to triple his output and because he could triple his output, he could then afford to send his children to school. On the grand scheme of things, that might seem like a small thing, but it's a huge thing to the people that it impacts. The other thing I'd say about the development budget is we're in a competition here. We're in a strategic competition with China, and China is all over the place, and particularly in Africa. And this was, I think, Probably, I don't know, 20, probably 10 years ago, but every place we went in Africa, they said the Chinese were there, and the Chinese were offering substantial funds and development funding to help the country. So I firmly believe that this is an integral part of our competition with China and it benefits people all over the world.
- [07:11]
B
So in an ideal world, looking at those 3Ds, defense, diplomacy, development, what role, again, ideally, should each of those play, and how would you see those coordinating or, or, or, or working together?
- [07:29]
C
I mean, you. So you're, you're asking me. You know, the challenge that I had in Iraq, frankly, because they're all, all three elements of the foreign relations tool, toolkit, and they have, and they have to be blended together to be effective. And it varies very much with the situation. When I went into Iraq, the President had passed a. Had signed a Presidential Security directive that basically established the division of labor between Defense and State. And Defense was responsible for security, and State was responsible for everything else, which included development and security assistance, funds for training the Iraqi security forces. Well, from a military perspective, I realized right off the bat that the keys to my success were outside of my control. So I had to work very closely with John Negropani and Zal Khalilzad and Jim Jeffrey to really think about how to most effectively bring all three elements together so that we could build an effective policy for Iraq. And it's like that every place, some place defense will be more important, some place development would be more important, some place diplomacy would be more important. But it's incumbent on the senior leaders to recognize that and to work together. There's another podcast going around where it talks about the Ambassador and the General, and I did it with John Negroponte, but basically it talks about how in many situations around the world that you just, you don't hear about, the military and the State Department have worked very closely together to accomplish our international objectives.
- [09:30]
B
Well, a lot of our audience is on this diplomacy, State Department and development, USAID side. General, what are some things you would like them to know on how they can best coordinate in these situations with the military?
- [09:46]
C
Well, I have, I'll give you, give you two personal examples. First is Bosnia. And I was a brigadier in Bosnia in 1996. And Dick Sklar, who was President Clinton's special representative for Bosnia Reconstruction, gave us, gave the, the first armored division, the military component, $5 million to establish what, what was called the Commander's Emergency Response Program. And this is something that we in the military had asked for because we were watching the Brits over in their sector and they had, they had the Office of Development Assistance and they, they from experience had had a program where they put money, they, they made money available to, to low level commanders to do small projects that help win the hearts and minds of the people, if you will. So we, we went in and asked for that and Nick Sklar came back with, with $5 million. And then I, I was an assistant division commander then, and I personally worked with the head of the Sarajevo. And we put together the modalities of how we were going to allocate this money, how we were going to make sure that it was well spent and all the paperwork, you know, was appropriately applied. And it made a significant impact almost instantaneously. The first, the first elections there in late 96. And I remember sitting in a meeting and it was, the meeting was to explain the commander's emergency relief program to the Bosniaks. Well, there was a city in northern Bosnia called Burchko, and it was a microcosm of Bosnia because all three sectarian groups were represented there. So I sat there listening as the program was explained to the mayors, each of the mayors, the Bosnian mayor, the Croat mayor, and the Serb mayor of Berchko right before the election. And they were all eyes, all ears because they knew that this was a way that they could go back to their people and say, hey, look what I did for you. And it said it had an immediate impact and it was something that, that continued over time. The second, the second one was, was when I went into Iraq and you know, the president had put $12 billion in there for Iraqi reconstruction. But when I got there, the State Department was going this way and the military was going this way. And as I went around and talked to people, that became imminently clear to me. So I actually took one of my brigadiers, an engineer brigadier named Tom Bostic, and I gave him to the ambassador. And I said, here is your guy for integration of the reconstruction effort. And John Negroponti, wise old diplomat that he is, he, he, he took it, but he was always a little, a little suspect that I was up to something, but I wasn't. I was just trying to coordinate. And, and so shortly after that, then I, I called, I had a meeting with, with the ambassador, and we brought in all the, all of the State Department aid people and all of the brigade commanders, and we laid out all the projects that they had. And, and so the commanders knew what projects were going on in their area. It might, it might seem like a small thing, but that level of coordination wasn't there yet. And when the military knows you're doing something that can help them, they're more than happy to provide security and do the things you need to do to get, to get the job done. And so.
- [14:06]
B
Sorry, go ahead, please continue.
- [14:08]
C
No, no, go ahead.
- [14:10]
B
So with a lot of our audience being on the aid side, I think that some might hear that and say, oh, no, the military wants to take over development projects. They want to lead and implement these. General, in your experience, is the military interested in leading implementation of these development programs?
- [14:26]
C
No, not at all. In fact, when I was the Army Chief of Staff, I graduated from the Foreign Service school. And so I had invited the dean of the Foreign Service school, Carol Lancaster, who has since passed away, and her students over to talk about development. And, boy, her students just beat me up for the army trying to take over. And I'm saying, hey, no, this is not something we want to do. We do it because we have to. And, and if it can be a tool of our international security policy and if it can be a tool of keeping the people winning the support of the people so they're not shooting at our soldiers or trying to blow them up, that, that, that's where, where we, we will be involved, but we, but we don't, we don't want to own it. Now, one of the things I've seen both in Bosnia and Kosovo and in Iraq is the State Department and aid, they have a lot. They have a few very smart people who really know their business, the military. We have a lot of people, and sometimes that can be overwhelming to the folks on the aid and State Department side. And I would tell you, you need to understand what the military is trying to do, and then you need to use them to help you accomplish your, your development goals because you both, you both want the same thing. You know, there's an old Sun Tzu quote that said, know the other and know yourself. 100 victories without peril. One of the great things that, that I learned over time is the higher you get in the leadership realm, the more you, you have to be able to influence People outside of your direct control and, and to build consensus around mutual issues and that's how you get things done.
- [16:36]
B
So then continuing from there, with your experience in reconstructions you mentioned in Bosnia and Kosovo, in Iraq, could we go back to that a little bit and maybe share some lessons learned or stories from that? And then of course, what we want to get to is applying it to current conflicts globally and maybe some practical or tactical advice that peace building organizations, reconstruction NGOs can use. But maybe going back to your experience, General, is there one or two stories that, that, that you'd be able to share from your experience overseeing those? I guess reconstruction both while the conflict is still going on and then what, what it looks like after the conflict has quieted?
- [17:22]
C
Yeah. Okay. I think the, the first lesson for me was this commander's emergency response program that we started in Bosnia for 5 million bucks, it got out of control and when I got to Iraq, that it was well beyond what we intended. And I had military units out there with multi million dollar road reconstruction programs, which was never the intent of the program. And I tried to, to walk that back a little bit and put the major development progress projects back with the State Department where it belonged. The second big lesson for me was after that meeting we had where we brought in all the brigade commanders and with all of the aid and State Department folks, development folks, we worked out a mutual agreement where every brigade would have an aid rep. So there were 17 brigades and every brigade had an aid rep who had a direct line back to Baghdad and to the aid office. And, and so, so there was instantaneous understanding of, you know, what both sides wanted and you know, you asked for some tips. You know, if you're, if you're someone working for aid and you have to work for the military, my first, first thought is use them. They are a significant manpower pool. And the second thing I tell you is you need to know the other you, you need to understand what they're trying to accomplish and figure out how you can help them accomplish that. Conversely, they need to understand what you're trying to accomplish and you need to be clear about your goals. So, so they know that. And then on the personal side, you need to have a relationship with the commander. Commander needs to know who you are and, and they need to understand the value that you can bring to them. And you know, you won't be working with the commander every day, but you shouldn't be invited to their meetings and you should be treated as a member, a valued member of their staff, which is what we saw in Iraq. So those are kind of the things that I think about and I think.
- [20:08]
B
That'S, I'd like to hear that, this important message that when the NGOs are coordinating with the military, the military wants them to succeed too. General, in your experience then for that messaging, what messaging resonated best with the military, with the soldiers, with the commander, when the NGOs, when the USAID staff are coordinating or communicating with them, what their role is? Did you find there was any bullet points or talking points or things that, that, that again resonated the best in the military context?
- [20:41]
C
I mean, you know, we, we all knew what we were trying to do, you know, on, on the military and on the military side we were trying to use development as a tool, but again, to winning the hearts and minds of the people on the development side. Honestly, when I first got there, as you can imagine, there was significant pressure coming in from Washington to spend the $12 billion. But Iraq didn't, didn't necessarily have a well developed program that could securely take this money and put it into projects that it needed. And, and so we, we had to, we had to get our arms around that. And you know, for example, one of the things that I found when I first got there was they counted the money spent when the contract was signed. Well, it could be months before the project was even started because of the security situation. So we changed the standard for the money being spent, as we called it, turning dirt that we actually started the project understanding that it would be some months before it was finished. So those are the things that I think about when you ask that.
- [22:11]
B
So let's move to today for organizations operating or planning to operate in conflict zones. Maybe we can talk specifically about Gaza and Ukraine. What do you see as the current situations there? Based on your decades of experience, any patterns you see in terms of again, what tactically, what can organizations hope to or effectively do now and what can they do to prep for reconstruction after, hopefully in the very near future? A, an end to conflict in both of those areas?
- [22:49]
C
Yeah, I mean both, both conflicts going on right now are very different. You know, in Ukraine you have a conventional conflict where you have two modern armies spread out along a 700 mile front and using long range missiles and things to destroy infrastructure. In Gaza you have a significant urban warfare fight in a very confined area. So I mean one thing both have in common is there is going to be the need for a significant, a very significant reconstruction effort when these conflicts end and all conflicts will end, they do. So that's the first thing. And again, you're talking about rebuilding a compact urban area and honestly rebuilding a country because of the attacks that have been on the infrastructure. So again, it's going to take a lot of money and a lot of expertise. And you know, we were, we've been talking here about the interaction between state and the military. There's a third party in all this and, and it's the, it's the countries or the populations that we're trying to help and, and they have a view. And so one of the things we had to do obviously in Iraq and in Bosnia and Kosovo was shape these projects to meet the needs, the stated needs of the, of the population and of the, of the leaders. And it wasn't always the same as ours. In fact it usually wasn't the same as ours. But, but you need to, to work that back and forth in terms of the, the military. The, the one, one other thing here. The, the other. The humanitarian situation in Ukraine is not nearly as dire as it is in Gaza. And so there's a substantial need for the humanitarian aid and assistance to flow into Gaza much sooner than it will be to flow into Ukraine. Ukraine from what I've read is not at the survival level yet Gaza is and so innovative. Things like, like building this, this pier, this mobile pier to go into, into Gaza and provide another lane for, to get equipment in there is is, is significant. So that, that's kind of on, on the, on the development side, on the military side. One of the things that I saw over the course of my career and when is when there is a, are major wars like this, every military in the world is, is going to school on them and, and they're, they're learning and adapting. For my generation it was the 773 Arab Israeli War that really changed the way the American military thought about fighting and it led to airland battle and this in the systems that basically were so successful in Desert Shield and Desert Store. So that, that, that, that bit is, is significantly important. Give me the second part of your question then.
- [26:33]
B
Well, the next part I was interested in is actually a little bit of a tangent on there. One of the current priorities of USAID is localization. When you talked about engaging obviously with the local population, the, the, the local government, one of the challenges is more the nuance of that. The. If you're operating in Liberia or Ukraine or Kenya just like in the US The US Government isn't a monolith that agrees on everything all the time. How did you go about deciding which Groups to engage with on the ground. If it's in Bosnia or Kosovo or, or Iraq. How did you. Yeah, again, even approach that? Because you have to build the trust and get the insight. But you also coming from the outside, it can be complex to understand, to even just understand the, the, the, the local network of power and influence, both officially and government roles. And then the, the unofficial power brokers.
- [27:34]
C
Yeah.
- [27:34]
B
Do you have any thoughts on approaching that? Which again, NGOs are doing it now, localizing development. But what does that mean? Does that mean hire some consulting firm in the capital. Great, you've localized it. Or does it mean really understanding what are the family power dynamics, the, the tribal power dynamics in, in the countries?
- [27:54]
C
Yeah, so that's a, that's a great question because I, I learned that myself as usual, the hard way in Bosnia. And, and what I found was so we were trying to keep the, the, the Croat, Bosnian Croats, Bosnian Serbs and bos apart. And they, they had agreed to stop killing each other, but they hadn't agreed to stop fighting. So, so they were, they were always working to try to create a situation where there was a flare up to gain it, to gain an advantage of some sort. And after a couple of flare ups, I realized that there were two or three people in each of these groups that if I had a personal relationship with them, they could help me calm things down. The three mayors that I talked about were great interlocutors. The military leaders in specific areas, it was all different by area. But the military leaders, the police leader. There were people all around Bosnia that had impact in their areas. And I, I took the time to think my way through this, figure out who they were. And it, this is not something I did in an afternoon. I mean it takes a period of months, frankly. And it's, it's trial and error. Because one of the big lessons I learned is just because the person speak, speaks English doesn't mean they're your friend. In fact, there's a lot of folks out there that are looking to get rich and manip by manipulating the, the flow of, of U. S Aid money. And so that, that's obviously the downside and you have to work that very carefully and you're never going to be entirely sure because of the internal dynamics and these out of the way places and they're, they're generally places where corruption, I will say rampant, but it's accepted, it's, it's an accepted way of doing business. And I, I call it cultural corruption. I mean it's just, it's the Bakshish culture that people just, that's just the way they do business. If they want something, they're going to pay for it.
- [30:14]
B
So then what I to go back to is Ukraine for a bit with the recent approval of additional aid and this might be leaning more on your military expertise. It is primarily, I didn't look at the exact numbers, but a significant portion of that are is military assistance to Ukraine. How do you see that affecting both in the short term and possibly more importantly in the long term? The, the, the battle lines. It seems that the Russian military was trying to take advantage of the delays in Congress to get, get the support over there pushed into a few border towns. But, but yeah. What is your take on what, what, what that support might mean? Maybe that's the best way to ask it in the short term and the long term for Ukraine's resistance and attempt to take back their territory.
- [31:08]
C
Yeah, I mean it was absolutely essential. And, and its delay has, has put the Ukrainians in a significantly adverse position Several several months ago. Let's say the, at the end of the year it was basically a stalemate and Ukrainians started running out of particularly artillery shells but other equipment. And the Russians, the Russians are taking advantage of it. And this $60 billion is, you know, puts the Ukrainians up as I think the eighth or ninth nation in terms of defense spending in the world. So it is a huge addition, but it's not going to happen overnight. A lot of times in Washington when president signs the bill or something like that, everyone assumes it's instantaneous in the country and obviously logistical movements of the size and scope that this will empower are months long processes. So I, I hope that we haven't acted too late and that the, this will flow and it'll allow the Ukrainians to stabilize the front. That said, I mean, I believe that today Russia has momentum and that's not to say they're going to win. It's just to say at this point of the conflict they, their actions are having a positive impact. So they, they have momentum and it's not just on the battlefield. If you look at what Putin has done in, in Russia, he's basically put the country on, on a war footing. They've done a credible job of, of dodging the sanctions. They're getting significant support, not, not all military support, but from other countries like China who are, are buying their oil in, in large quantities and they're getting military support from countries like Iran and North Korea. And, and it, so the, and it's interesting that the country generally supports what, what's going on. But at the same time, the polls that I've seen said they want peace, so they support what's going on, but at the same time they'd like to see this get done. Ukraine has got to take this aid and turn it into battlefield capability as rapidly as it can. And if you go back to what I said earlier about the 73 war, you know, so what are the lessons that militaries are taking away from this, this conflict? And I think that the big one is that there's a recognition now today that you can't move without being seen, either by a satellite, by an airplane, by a drone. You can't. And so when you can't move without being seen, that really impacts your ability to mash your forces, to bring a lot of forces together. And that is the, is the type of operation you need to have if you're going to penetrate enemy defensive belts. And so that's one of the reasons these have devolved into very small unit actions. The other element here is electronic warfare. And the Russians have always been good at electronic warfare and their jammers are very effective. I read an article in the paper the other day that said Excalibur, which is a precision guided 155 artillery round, is not being used as much anymore because the Russians have found a way to jam the GPS signal that guides, that guides the missile. So there's going to be much more development in there. And then third is, is, is drones. I mean, the, the Ukrainians are losing 20,000 drones a month. So you can imagine what they're producing. And the, the drones give you a capability to hover and not only identify, but also to kill. And, and so all these lessons are being processed by the militaries now and they'll continue to use them to, to shape how they develop their forces for the future.
- [36:04]
B
So have you been, I don't know if you've been following the supposed purge of the senior leadership in Russia's military by Putin. I don't if. I think it was five or so senior members of the Russian military have been arrested or re. Reassigned to other roles, having actually worked inside a very large military, the largest. How significant is that? Is that something that maybe the media in the west is picking up on? One or two things to try to, you know, I don't know, go with the storyline they're hoping for of Russian military weakness, or if you do have, I think it's up to five senior members of your leadership, again reassigned or arrested that, that suggests there's maybe something, I don't know if it's a weakness or an inefficiency or what you'd call it, but I don't know what your take on and that would be.
- [37:03]
C
Yeah, I don't know the specifics. I followed what was going on with the Defense Minister Shoigu and I read about the rest. But here's my, here's my take. It's been two years. And, and not only did they not accomplish their most important objective quickly, you know, they, they call this a special military operation, which is the same thing they call the operations into Czech Republic in 68 and to Hungary in, in 56. And this special military operation didn't come off. And, and so not only didn't it come off, the war has now stabilized into a battle of attrition again with the forces strung out along the 700 mile front, which basically means that they're fixed because you can't take a lot of forces from here and move them up here without exposing yourself down here. So it, you know, they're at a stalemate. So to a large extent Russia is making some, some local gains moving in, in toward Kharkiv. So it, it, with all that as background, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that Putin's not happy with the performance of the military. It, it didn't accomplish what he wanted on the timelines that, that he wanted it to accomplish. And, and now he's in a position where he's seeing some local success and he wants some new blood in there because he wants to win. He's, he's in a position with what he's put Russia through that he can't afford to lose. And so he's going to do everything in his power to win. And starting with a clean slate and, and reshaping the Defense Department leadership, it makes, I'm sure it makes sense to him. Now if you, if you think back to the post World War II days and Stalin's purges of the military officers, you know, it also gives you heads and say, well, these guys, you know, I had to start with a whole new group of folks. So it also is good maybe setting them up for, for an excuse, will it be destabilizing inside Russia? To a degree, but I don't see it necessarily affecting directly what's going on in Ukraine for a period of time.
- [39:42]
B
So then going bigger picture back to something you mentioned earlier in the day, one role of development from the US Foreign policy perspective is countering China's influence. And looking at the world order post 1945, post World War II with NATO, what you see with the alliances with China, with Iran, with North Korea, with, with Russia. Do you. Yeah. What is your take on, on how that might affect the, the balance of power globally? Do you see regional balances of power, I don't know, gaining influence with a, a string? I don't know what the best way a current of isolationism in certain parts of American politics too, can that potentially create a, that, I don't know, abdicates some of the power the US has maintained since 1945 in the global world order. I'd be interested in any piece of that, General. Just your take on if we're just looking too much into individual events and losing the overall picture or if you do see a real shift in the global power balance.
- [40:57]
C
Okay, sure. I don't think there's any question that we are in a high level strategic competition with China. The question that I ask myself periodically is competition for what? There's a great book called the 100 Year Marathon and it's about China's 100 year plan to become the global hegemon. The Chinese word for it is ba and the translation is loose. And the big question mark is does ba mean total control of the international system or does it mean being a leading player in a new world order? And I don't think there's any question that China is not satisfied with the U. S built Western order. And I, I think he's not. Z is, is trying to work as is Putin for that matter, to build a, a new world order that is not so focused and centralized on the west. And I think that's a, that's a very real competition. And I think for us to say that, you know, we've been doing this since World War II and that we're going to keep doing it the same way for another 80 years. I don't know that that's, that's a fact. And so as I said earlier, you have to know the other. It is admittedly very hard to figure out what's going on in the mind of other countries leaders, but we have to invest in that. I personally. Second point I'd say is we are in a fundamentally different era with China than what we worked since Nixon went to China in the 70s. We're in a fundamentally different area. You know, we thought we had a policy of engagement and we believe this is a gross generalization within the government. But over several administrations the belief was that if we could bring China along economically, like bringing them into the World Trade Organization and things like that, that democracy would follow. Well, obviously that, that hadn't been the case. And so we have to, we have to think, think differently about how we deal with China. And I think focusing on what they're trying to accomplish in this new world order is, is going to be a, is going to have the highest payoff over the long term. Again, this is not something that's going to be sorted out here in a year or two. The last thing I'd say about China is we, we sometimes look at our, at our opponents and think they're 10ft tall and they're not. And China has huge internal problems. You look at what's going on just within the real estate sector now they have a, a significant corruption problem that, that, that Z is, is trying to get at. But, but it's, it's so deeply ingrained that it's, it's problematic for their, for their future, for their future development. The other thing is that you know, they haven't been in a war since 1979. And so when I, I went to China twice, I went in 2009 and I went to 2000 in 2019. I went in 2009 as the army Chief of Staff and I was sitting down having a meeting with my counterpart and I was telling them about the challenges of at that time, six or seven years at war. And, and then when I finished I said but the benefit is that we have a combat season force and, and I could see the blood leave his face because he knew, he's a military guy, he knew what that meant and he knew they didn't have one. And, and the third thing would be this talk about Taiwan. There's two Sunu quotes that lead me to believe that there's nothing imminent going on with China and Taiwan. The first, the first is those who have supreme skilled bend other bend others without conflict. And that, that really is, is the core principle that Sun Tzu writes about because he was, he was writing during the Warring states period about 250 years of devastation, you know, about 300 B.C. and, and if you, even if you fought, you lost. And so I think you're going to see some more years of kind of what's going on now, periodic military operations that go up to the line but don't, but don't cross it. You're going to see economic pressures, you're going to see political pressure, you're going to see all kinds of non military things short of force going on I think that's going to, they're going to work that for a while. When I was In China in 2019, over a few mile ties after our day sessions, one of the leaders there told us that their original plan A was to demonstrate that one country, two systems worked in Hong Kong so they could go to Taiwan and say hey look, see it's great here, this can work for you too. Well, obviously they turned that around and that plan A is out because they're obviously putting the hammer down in, in Hong Kong. So oh, the second, the second quote is, and I'm paraphrasing but no good ever came from prolonged conflict. And basically if you're going to have a conflict, get it over and get it done quickly. Well, if they're, if they're looking at Ukraine and I'm sure that the generals told Putin you know, this will be over in, in a month. And, and it's a standard military thing where the general say we'll be home by Christmas. Well, my experience is no you won't because think things tend to slow down when people shoot at each other. And, and so they're looking at what's going on in Ukraine and they're trying to, their, for their first military operation since 1979, they are going to attempt, attempt a crossing of 100 mile Taiwan Straits under probably significant. I, as I said you can't move without being seen. So they're going to be seen and they're going to be attacked. And amphibious operations are right up with urban warfare, the most difficult military operations to coordinate. And just as a quick example, in 1942 Roosevelt overruled George Marshall, the army chief of Staff who wanted to husband the forces for a cross channel attack in 1943 into Europe and sent him into Operation Torch, which is an attack into North Africa. Well, in our first amphibious operation against the Vichy French, which were not a very dynamic enemy, the operation almost collapsed under its own weight. And if we had gone in 1943 and tried our first amphibious operation, it would, the whole result might have been different. And then we, we got better in Sicily, but we got better in Salerno, we got better in Anzio and by the time we went into Normandy we were, we were much better prepared. So I don't see a significant rush by the Chinese to do this. And the last thing they're seeing is the economic sanctions on Russia and 35% of China's trade is with the United States, the European Union, Japan and Korea. And they put that at risk by doing something like that.
- [50:08]
B
And that's an interesting perspective. I was actually rereading parts of the Art of War recently and that was the general takeaway I had is the greatest victory is to win victory without conflict and to win before the conflict. And so that's an interesting perspective, General, we're getting towards the end. We'd love to get your insight on leadership. You were the Chief of Staff of the U.S. army, member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You had at least now I don't at the time around 1 million, maybe more than 1 million personnel underneath you. You know, we work with managers that have two or three staff as direct reports. Maybe a SVP or CEO has hundreds, maybe a thousand staff. How do you approach leadership with an organization that massive?
- [51:01]
C
Okay, well, first of all, you prepare for it over 41, over 36 years. And, and becoming an effective leader at that level is a journey and you can succeed at it if you commit to learning and growing at every level of leadership. And every time I moved up a notch, I had to be ruthlessly candid with myself and ask myself, are the skills that got me here the same skills that will take me there? An answer was usually no. And if I was unsure about it, I would ask my wife and she could be very candid with me about what I needed to, to work on. So, so when I got, got to Iraq, what I saw was the American military was thrust into a fundamentally new environment after September 11th, that, that we, I had spent 30 years of a 40 year career training to fight a war and never fought in the last 10, learning to fight a different kind of war while I was fighting it. Well, I think that's the bane of every leader's existence today. Things are changing so fast that, that if you try to just keep doing the same thing, it's, it's not going to work and you're not going to get ahead. So when I came back, I revamped the General Officer Leader Development Program and I was asked what are the key skills, personal skills that leaders need to have? Because we say to be effective, leaders need to be certain things and they need to do certain things. It's not just enough to be a nice person. And I said, we need leaders today with vision, courage, character and an offensive mindset. Vision, number one responsibility of a leader is to point the way ahead that you, you have to, to cut through this morass of vaness, if you will, volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, and say, no, this is what we're going to do. And to do that, you, you have to accept the fact that you're human, right? You can't predict the future. You. You never know what's going to happen. But you. You have to pick a road. Courage. Churchill, as he often does, says it I think best courage is the first among human qualities because it empowers all others. Nothing good happens without risk. And it takes courage to act with conviction in the face of uncertainty and risk. You know, you could be wrong. There could be significant consequence. And I used to watch in the Pentagon, I called it the corporate duck, that when a decision needed to be made, a lot of people just ducked and hope someone else picked it up or it all worked out. That's not the way to succeed today. Character. Leaders with strong values build strong organizations, period. And if you just. If the folks out there think about the leaders that have led them, the men and women who. Who think about the men and women who you thought had strong character and how you felt about it, and think about the ones who maybe didn't have such. You didn't think had such strong character and how you felt about that. Leaders of character form the. Give the organization the glue to that and the trust that binds the organization together. And then one of my predecessors, Creighton Abrams, he was the chief of staff of the army in the early 70s. He used to say, the higher up the flagpole you go, the more your butt hangs out. And what he means is, the higher you are in the organization, the more people are watching you. So if you're not living the values that you're espousing, the only one that doesn't see it is you. And then offensive mindset, it might seem what I define as offensive mindset is creating the future you want through action. You know, when I went into Iraq, the environment was so complex and so uncertain that it put me on the back foot for a week or so. And I was afraid it would do the same thing for my key subordinate leaders. So I said, focus on the enemy and be opportunistic. Well, I've kind of modified a little bit for business audiences. So it's creating the future you want through action. And it starts with humility. You know, after 18 years at war, in 2019, the army published its second leadership manual since 2001, since September 11th. And after 18 years of war, they added humility to the characteristics they wanted to see in all their leaders. That strike you as odd. I. You have to accept your humanity, right? You have to accept the fact you can't read people's minds. You can't Predict the future. There's always going to be things you won't know and you're going to make mistakes. We're all human, and I think that. Go ahead.
- [56:32]
B
You, you won't be as blinded by your ego. I think with the humility, yes, I can see how that would maybe intuitively sound odd, but I think also having that in there, you have a clearer, not a fully clear, but it can give you a clearer view of the situation when you remove yourself a little bit from it.
- [56:49]
C
Humility is the absence of arrogance, and arrogance is not going to help you succeed in a vocal world. In the army, we say there's only two kinds of plans. Those that might work and those that won't work. And because we're human, the best you're going to do is a plan that might work. Secondly, you got to accept what I call the Vuca Paradox. And I borrowed this from Jim Collins, who's an American leadership guru, and he looked at 20,400 companies to look for companies that outperform their industry by 10 times over a decade or more. He found seven. And you don't think the other 20,393 CEOs were out there busting their humps to succeed? Sure they were, but they, the seven all accepted the Vuca Paradox. They accepted the fact that their environment would be volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, but they didn't accept the fact that external factors would determine their results. And that's the, that's the Vuca paradox. And I encourage you all to think that way. The third one is you got to do your homework. I mean, this is not an environment where you're going to Google the answer to your, what your challenge is. And I read another Sun Tzu quote that stuck with me. Enlightened leaders make decisions with a clear mind and a pure heart. And that's how I tried to do it. I tried to do my homework, make my decision with a clear mind and pure heart. At the end of the day, I had to look myself in the mirror and say, I'm doing this because I believe it's absolutely the right thing to do for the organization to accomplish this mission at this time. And if I could do that, know in my mind, I was doing with a clear mind and a pure heart. That gave me the conviction that the plan might work and that gave me the courage to act in the swirl of all this Vuca ness that was going on around me. And then lastly, you have to continuously assess and adapt. So if you have a plan that only Might work. And you believe the old Helmut von Moltke quote that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Then you know that the plan is going to change and you can't get bogged down thinking, pointing fingers about and playing the blame game. You got, you got to figure out what happened, change and adapt and get on with it. So vision, courage, character and offensive mindset. That's what I believe it takes to lead effectively in any organization, public or private sector today.
- [59:33]
B
So as we're looking at the foreign aid budget again as we mentioned, politics obviously plays a significant role in there. What would you say to politicians, whether in congress or the white House, that are looking to cut foreign aid or want to, yeah, I guess cut, reduce foreign aid. They see it as wasted funding, not important to US Foreign policy interests or to America's growth globally. What would your message or thoughts to them be?
- [60:08]
C
Well, I mean, this is a lot what we do when we go around with the U. S. Global leadership coalition talking to these folks and we start off saying, and not only members of congress, but with the public, I mean, right from the bat, there's a perception that we're given a great percentage of the U. S. Budget to outside the country and it's Significantly less than 1% of the, of the whole budget. And so we make sure they understand that. And then we quote, we quote old Franklin Roosevelt that American security depends on countries far away. And, and we talk about the impact that foreign aid can have. And I won't get the number exactly right, but it's like 8 to 10 of our largest trading partners were once aid recipients. And so it helps countries grow. And then the third thing we talk about, I mentioned earlier is the competition with China, that this is a tool that helps us maintain influence in parts of the world where China is actively working for influence. And then the last thing for me is it's the right thing to do for us to help and invest in building a, a better world and to help make people's lives better around the world. From a military perspective, happy people are, and content people are less likely to take up arms. And for us, that's, that's why general Mattis said, you know, I have to buy more bullets.
- [61:50]
B
Well, general, our mission is to make aid more effective and more efficient. I believe this conversation today helped do that. It helps organizations working in peace building and conflict settings to better understand the military, their perspective, how they can most effectively engage. And my hope is that some of the organizations listening do take some of these tactics and are able to more effectively implement the important U.S. foreign aid programs around the world. So thank you again for joining us today on the podcast. It was a pleasure having you on here and sincerely appreciate your insight that you shared with me and our audience today.
- [62:26]
C
Okay, great. Thanks Mike. Thanks everybody. Good luck.
- [62:29]
B
Thank you General. Have a good day.
- [62:31]
A
Thank you for tuning in to the GovDiscovery AI podcast with Mike Shanley. Gov Discovery AI leverages our team's decade of experience winning federal funding to deliver federal growth intel to sales, proposal and capture teams working in defense and civilian markets. Each market intel report is delivered by federal growth experts leveraging our proprietary deep data discovery process. If you enjoyed today's show, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and connect with Gov Discovery AI and Mike Shanley on LinkedIn or learn more at govdiscoveryai.com.