Q&A: Deterrence, War, and American Resolve

- European security is utterly connected to security in the Indo-Pacific, for example. So the people who kind of are advocating for playing like little kid soccer and like running to the Taiwan Strait and forgetting the rest of the world, are not acknowledging that this is a global competition with an axis of aggressors. Thank you General for the talk. So we know from Cold War experience, Dayton policies tend to embolden the enemies instead of trying to get them to come to the table. But in more recent decades, we see the same patterns happening again, hoping they would come to the table for a compromise or whatever. So I was wondering what lessons can we draw from history to guide future decisions? Or is it truly unprecedented? Since you've also listed a few new assumptions about China and Yeah, It's a great question. Thank you. I, I think what, what I would say is that corollary to that observation is that, that what is provocative for, to, to our adversaries, what provokes our adversaries is the perception of weakness. And I believe that we're in the situation we're in today with this coalescing of this axis of, of aggressors, because they perceived weakness in us. And, and you could go to a, a number of different events that that would, that would indicate that, you know, that, that maybe led them to that conclusion. But I think the August of, of 2021, disastrous and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan, really, you could draw a direct line from that to the, the massive invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. There's lots of evidence for that. Of course, that's when the massive buildup was beginning of Russian equipment and ammunition and medical around the borders of, of, of Ukraine. It's when Putin published that essay, that long essay, you know, said like Ukraine's not really even a thing. And, and he was really driven to, in, in this effort to, to recreate the Russian empire. And then you had, remember just prior to the Beijing Olympics, you had that joint statement that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin made where they, you know, they talked about, you know, their, their love for one another. They have the partnership with no limits, right? But the real message of that joint statement was that Hey West, hey, United States, you're over. This is the new era of international relations. We're, we're in charge now. And I, I think that what we, what we forget a lot of times is that the way to deter war is, is through strength, right? President Trump says this piece through strength, but also there is this sort of movement these days to retrench, to disengage from complex problems abroad and to say, well, let the Europeans worry about their own security. And what that, what that does is it doesn't recognize the connections between this axis of, and the fact that, you know, 30,000 more North Korean troops were on the way to fight alongside Russians. They're providing 12 million rounds of artillery. It's Iranian shehe drones that are part of the massive onslaught against Ukraine. And China's underwriting the entire effort. And in fact, their foreign minister said what I think two weeks ago, we can't allow Russia to fail. You know, so, so it's really important to understand those connections, to understand what deters were is strength. And I mentioned kind of the failure to deter Putin in, in, in 2022, you know, in the series of actions we took to allay his concerns. But we, when we were helping President Trump frame his foreign policy approach to Russia, for example, because I think you were kind of alluding to the summit that's coming up, and this effort maybe bringing Russia into the, in from, in, from the cold. We, we, we put his, one of our assumptions for the Russia policy and briefed him on it, and he approved it that Vladimir Putin will only stop his hostility, his aggression toward the west when we impose costs on him that go far beyond the cost that he factors in when he, when he makes a decision to take these aggressive actions against us. And he agreed with that. And so in that first year, and this was painful, I mean, secretary master members, I mean, to get, to bring these decisions to the president, in that first year, he put more sanctions on Russian entities and individuals in that first year than, than the previous eight years of the Obama administration. He wound up closing two consulates expelling scores of Russian undeclared intelligence agents, because we kept referring back, you know, back to this, you know, this assumption, this was, we have to impose costs. But then in December of 2017, the one decision president Trump, Trump had not yet made was to provide jave and missiles and maybe other defensive capabilities to the Ukrainians. He made the decision September, I think, September October when we, when we brought him the Russia strategy, but he had not yet approved that specific action. And so I went to the back room of the next to the Oval office, the little dining room. We had lunch together that day. And he had heard from all of his advisors already about this. I was reviewing his foreign policy decisions, you know, from 2017 foreshadowing 2018. I brought with me parts of the national security strategy that he was about to approve. But the one thing I wanted, I I brought up with him is this, this, this javelin providing javelins to the Ukrainians, and my staff would provide a chart for me, and I laid it out in front of him. And it was a timeline that ran from left to right. And below that timeline was a world event or US decision, or something that kind of communicated weakness, you know, in the US resolve to confront aggression. So the unen unforced red line in Syria was on there. For example, this is when, when President Obama had said, this is a red line to use chemical weapons to commit mass murder against civilians. And then we didn't do anything about it. In fact, we did something worse. We invited the Russians in, you know, to, to help with Syria. Okay, how did that work out? So, so, so, but, and then, and then above that timeline was a subsequent act of aggression that I think is, was correlated at least to, to this perception of weakness. And it was the first invasion of Ukraine, you know, in, in, in 2014 and in 2014. And so the point that I was making for to the president is that, that what provokes Putin is the perception of weakness. And then he, he signed the memo to, to, to sell and, and provide some javelins. But I think that, I mean, I think that's what we have to remember is that efforts to have a better relationship with somebody that that's great, you know, but if it's an adversary, if it's a hostile, if a hostile entity or, or country or leader, that what they'll respect is strength and you can achieve peace of strength. Yes. Yes. Hi, general, I wanna thank you for your time. And I was curious about your thoughts on the evolution of US military strategy and composition as we transition from the era of the war on terror into this more multipolar world. We've seen the prominence of drones in Ukraine and threats regarding like the Navy and the Indo-Pacific, and how we remain vigilant for terrorism. But if you have concerns about lessons we may have learned, or habits that may have become entrenched during the war on terror, that we may need to adjust as we move into this different world. Okay, that's a great, a great question. I think we have some significant vulnerabilities in our joint force because we have a tremendous bow wave of deferred modernization. That bow wave of deferred modernization is due in large measure to major reductions in the defense budget during the Obama years, while we're still fighting two wars. And so when you're fighting two wars, where's the priority gonna go? It's gonna go to people who are, you know, who are at, at the front line, who are taking risks for your country and, and, and, and the operational costs of, of those wars. And in the meantime, what happened is the people's liberation army in particular, but Russia as well, and we saw a lot of these, these capabilities on display in the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. They didn't try to replicate a lot of our exquisite capabilities. What they did is they developed capabilities, weapon systems, to, to take apart what they saw as our differential advantages. So those include offensive cyber, electromagnetic warfare, counter satellite capabilities, tiered in layered air defense, long range precision strike, and also drones, subsurface aerial drone capabilities and so forth. So we have to develop counter measures of those cameras. And we have, right, a lot of those technologies are mature, but we haven't fielded them yet. We haven't fielded them at scale in, in Ukraine. I think what you're seeing is, is, is is a, a major evolution in the character of warfare. It wasn't, it wasn't, it's not brand new, right? I mean, you could say V one, V two, threat to London and World War ii. It's kinda like a drone capability, right? You could, you could, you could, you could see the, the Iranians over many years now trying to perfect this drone missile complex that we're using the Houthis to experiment with that in attacks against the Saudis and, and, and others in, in the region. You know, long before this. You look at the Armenia Azerbaijan war and the effect that, that the Turkish provided drones had as, as on the, on the side of the, the, the azerbaijanis. So it's not unprecedented, we should have called a glimpse of this. But now what you're seeing is, is really UASs at scale and UAS is combined, combined with other surveillance capabilities. RF collection, you know, electromagnetic warfare collection capabilities, low earth orbit satellites and satellite imagery. And how about the big data analytical capabilities that allow you to, to synthesize all this data and, and really pull the curtain back, right? Increase the transparency of the battlefield. So it is drones and FPV drones, especially now, one of the biggest threats for the, on the tactical battlefield are these, are these wire guided, you know, FPV drones that really are forcing everybody to disperse in a way, like massive artillery forced forces to disperse a World War I. But those drones used to be about like six kilometer range. Now, the 30 kilometer range, right? So think about where the adaptations in the western front of World War I, it was the elastic defense, right? It was, it was then, it was the, during the ludendorff offensive infiltration tactics, you're seeing World War I tactics, right? Play out. So you have change, but you also have elements of continuity, right? In the way that the, the war is being fought. What are the implications, the implications of us for, for us are clearly the ability to fight with UAS at scale. So do you, what do you wanna get to, you wanna get to more than an FPV drone. That's one controlling one. You want one person controlling many. So you're looking now at maybe computing power at the edge for, for you unmanned aerial systems, the ability for self-healing kind of mesh communications networks, and the ability, because of that computing power at the edge to have machine learning at the edge. So you can give swarms of drones, missions take out air defense systems, for example, and they, you know, one gets killed. Oh, they learn from it. They, they, you know, that that kind of a, you have a drone formation now that, so that's coming. But also you need the counter drone capability, right? And, and as you're looking at this broadly, what do you really wanna do? You really wanna parallelize the enemy, strike the enemy in depth. That's not a new concept, but you need to blind your enemy because unless you can blind your enemy, you can't achieve freedom of movement and action. Because of the increased transparency of the battlefield combined with these long range precision capabilities, blind the enemy that, you know what that means? The next war's going to space, it's go into space 100%. It's already, it's already gone into cyberspace. Obviously electromagnetic warfare we're seeing is extremely important, but we have to develop a whole range of capabilities to blind and deceive our enemy as well. So ai, some people say, Hey, AI's gonna make everything different in war. Well, some things it will certainly, it can achieve greater speed of action, but is the data that they're accessing with AI related technology, is that gonna be perfect? Or, or can it be corrupted? Can it be deceived? So I think blinding your enemy is what we have to really focus on, and you're gonna need a whole range of capabilities, because what we have to remember about war, okay, And I, I, I'm sorry to go on about this, but I think this is something we could talk about is, again, to challenge assumptions and, and, you know, this is a busy chart, but what I want you to get from this is you have to say, what are your assumptions about future war? For many times in, in, in Amer recent American military history after wars, we have made some flawed assumptions about the nature of future war. What you're hearing now is we're just gonna forget all that consolidation to gain stuff, right? So I guess war's no longer a a a extension of politics. Maybe. I mean, I don't know, we're just gonna do raids now. I'm not sure, you know, it doesn't make sense to me, right? But, but typically what you'll see is in, when new technologies emerge, an assumption that this new technology, the telegraph, right? That was new technology, it's gonna shift war fundamentally from the realm of uncertainty to the realm of certainty, right? And so if you believe that artificial intelligence technologies, the algorithms you develop the computing power you're gonna have, the access to multiple databases is going to make war certain, you're gonna know everything you need to know. Then what you need to do is have the, you're gonna be able to develop a perfect plan, right? So if you believe in certainty, planning is a lot more important than than execution, right? If you have the perfect plan, you want everybody to execute that plan. You want people to take an initiative, right? So what you want is to synchronize things rather than allow for initiative at lower levels. If you have perfect knowledge with your big screen TVs and your command post, right? You know, yeah. You don't want pe you know, you're gonna centralize capabilities at your level. 'cause you're the one who's gonna make the decision, send in the drones, send in the, you know, instead of decentralizing capabilities to lower levels, right? And, and so this has organizational implications, it has cultural implications as well, right? If you stifle initiative, if you don't allow for, for mission command is what we call it in, in, in, in, in, in the Army and Marine Corps in particular. So anyway, I see this happening again, this is like the RMA, the revolution Military affairs in the, in the nineties, right? That, that future war would be fast, cheap, efficient wage for standoff range waged by, not by humans, right? Well, I mean, how's that playing out in af in, in, in, in Gaza, you know, how's that playing out in Ukraine? War is still about the control of territory, populations, and resources. So every, in Aurora period, we wanna make war different and believe it, it really, you know, to, to shift war to this, this realm of, of, of certainty. And you hear all these phrases that come in like rapid decisive operations in the nineties, okay, who's gonna be against that? You know, are you for potter's indecisive operations? I guess, you know, or you hear like, you know, we need a force that's lean and nimble, right? You're probably too young to know this, but do everybody familiar with Richard Simmons? Richard Simmons was lean and nimble, but you didn't send him to kick anybody's ass, you know? So I mean, I, you just have to really question these assumptions and, and recognize that there are changes in the character of warfare, but there are also con continuities. And, but hey, tha thanks, thanks, thanks for that question. And, and again, I'm not, you know, I'm not a Luddite. I mean, I'm telling you we want all the latest technologies, drones are changing the character of warfare. But, but also, you know, I think we have to, we have to recognize that you need a whole range of capabilities because they're gonna be countermeasures, like direct energy, like to electromagnetic warfare against drones as well. Just got the mic on this side. Yeah. So, good morning, general, I'd like to ask a question about Russia. So Im from, Tell me a little bit about yourself too. Tell me where you're from a little bit, you know, yeah. Sorry, Previous questions. Okay. I'm from, and our common belief in Europe is that, you know, unless they are the Russians seminar beaten hard enough kind in Ukraine, it'll be only a matter of time, like maybe given like two or five or whatever on the years to recover before they pull a kind of 2014 like move on the Baltics. Yeah. And so, and the idea that without strong US support and coordination, the European response to that will be full unitary far from certain, and God knows what the consequences of that could be for the whole continent. And so what I would like to know from you is what do you think the US response will be to that scenario, and what do you think it should be? And also whether it'll be significantly different based on which party will be in power By the time You mean Russian aggression against Europe? Yeah. Russian aggression against the Baltics. Not overly explicit, but like with 2014 style. Okay. Okay. Well, you know, I'll tell you, I along this the kind of lines of, of Russia and Russia's ability to, to, to grow its capabilities and the threat in Europe more in the future, I really recommend general Chris Valli's testimony, which was fantastic, right? Recent, right before he retired, where he kinda lays out this concern pretty clearly. I'm pretty optimistic now because of the kind of shock that President Trump delivered to Europe, which I mean, it was a shock to me too, and disappointing in terms of the Zelensky meeting, you know, not voting for the un resolution con, you know, condemning Russia for its aggression against Ukraine. And then, and then the suspension of, of assistance to, to Ukraine. I think that was finally the wake up call to get Europe to act on, you know, what Olaf Schultz had said was the Zeit vendor, you know, of, of recognizing the, the Russian threat, the recognizing, you know, the, the, the, you know, the, the Zeit vendor didn't, didn't result in really German investments in, in defense, but it, it has now with Chancellor Merz, as well as o other European countries making the commitment to for 5% of GDP equivalent on the combination of military capabilities and military related infrastructure. So I think Europe has woken up to it and, and we're recognizing the frailties of our defense industrial base, all sorts of other issues important to deter Russian aggression. But what really gives me, I think, more confidence and ability to deter Russia or defeat Russian aggression are the qualitative edge that we have within, within our militaries within nato. And especially when I look at, you know, at the, you know, the, the focus of the Baltic states with Poland and now the Nordic states with the addition of Finland and Sweden, if Russia's gonna take on the Baltic states, they're gonna have huge problems. I mean, where are their ships gonna, gonna, gonna, gonna sail? I mean, how are they gonna get outta ports? I mean, I mean, I think, I think in terms of hard military capabilities, Russia would have to realize that this would be a significant risk to, to their, I mean to, to the country's survival economically and militarily. The other thing that gives me confidence is, is, is I think that we're gonna get to a position where we have the best of both worlds, where you have President Trump, who has strained the transatlantic alliance in a way that I think was, was, was not in, in the US interests or the interests of the free world. But in doing so, he's provided that impetus for, for greater defense investment. And I believe that transatlantic alliance is going to mend, and, and I, I have confidence in that because I, I have confidence in a lot of the European leaders who are, I think in the great discussions with President Trump and helping him see how it's in US interest to make a sustained commitment to Europeans, Europe's defense, and I, I would put the Secretary General of NATO at the top of that list, you know, who's Secretary General Ruta. And, and, and also, you know, I think we can have faith in Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and Ayatollah, and to make the point, you know, that this axis is acting together and European security is utterly connected to security in the Indo-Pacific, for example. So the people who kind of are advocating for playing like little kid soccer and like running to the Taiwan Strait and forgetting the rest of the world, are not acknowledging that this is a global competition with anxi of aggressors. And we can get, you know, a lot for a, a relatively small amount of defense dollars by being part of nato, right? It's a way to save us taxpayers money. I think it's important though, to acknowledge this is quick for how many from Europe here. Oh, awesome. Great. Okay. So it's important to understand what kind of drives this attitude toward European security in America. And what drives it is the belief by many of those Americans who I mentioned who were left behind in the two thousands, right? A lot of them think that Europe has been free riding on the largess of American taxpayers. And so when they look at, at Europe, they're like, oh, hey, Europe is 19% of the world's GDP, 50% of the world's social spending. We've been covering Europe's defense bills and, and then thereby underwriting European, you know, social spending at, at our expense. That's how a lot of Americans view it. I think that's shifting now with the greater you sharing of defense responsibility as well as the recognition of the various threats. And I think the shift, the shift has to be, and we have to communicate effectively to Americans how the NATO alliance, for example, or other bilateral alliances like with, with Japan or with South Korea, I mean, they save us a lot of money, you know, and be because, because collective defense, if we had to replicate what our allies provide, we couldn't afford it. Who's got the mic on this side? Yes. Hi, my name is Diana, I'm from Ukraine. Thank you very much for your insights. I'm doing intelligence at Kings College London, so I could see some familiar faces on your slides. Thank you very much for talking a lot about hybrid warfare and Russia, Ukraine. So my question would be, in your experience, what strategic missteps has Russia made in Ukraine so far, and how can Ukraine explode this to strengthen its position without escalating the conflict? Thank you. Okay, well, great. I mean, this is a really great question. I think it's not only Russia, but I would say the entire axis of aggressors are in a position of profound weakness because they are overextended, essentially. They did, they did I think, sense this, this weakness in the West, right? And, and acted on it. And I'm talking about not only, not only Russia's invasion of Ukraine in, in 2022, but in 2014, their, their involvement in the Syrian Civil War. For, for exa example, I think what what China has, has done is, is sort of overextended it itself in support of Russia and others, but overextended itself economically in its race to surpass the United States by creating real frailties in, in its economy. We saw Iran kind of overextended, didn't they? When they lit the ring of fire around Israel on October 7th, 2023. And then crossed, crossed that that that boundary that they'd always tried to keep in place so they could escape any consequences directly against them of attacking Israel directly twice last year, right? That blew back on on Iran. Look at what Korea's doing now, providing North Korea is providing a kind of the equivalent $40 billion equivalent of support to Russia, right? When you get factor in personnel on auditory and everything else, I think they're all overextended. So the mistake I think they've made is, is that Ukraine would, would, would, would fall quickly because they overestimated their own capabilities and they underestimated Ukrainian valor and Ukrainian capabilities. They also underestimated resolve in the West. And I wish we had been more resolute in it in sort of a, a, a consistent basis over the years in support for Ukraine. But, but, but, but Ukraine got a lot more support from the United States and others than, than Russia had had banged on. So I think those are, are two of the, two of the big mistakes. I, I hope, right? I hope that Russia, it continues to make the mistakes that it's been making in terms of continuing its aggression against Europe. Because what you're seeing is not only the, the, the direct attacks on, on Ukraine, but you're also seeing this kind of shadow war that Russia's been conducting, cutting undersea cables, blowing up warehouses, putting out a hit on the, on the CEO of Ryan Mattel, for example. And I think what this demonstrates to everybody is, you know, the war in Ukraine is inex connected to everybody else's security. And as I mentioned, the way, the way that, you know, China is underwriting the effort with purchases of, of Russian energy that feeds Putin's ATM and providing the hardware and equipment that allows 'em to continue their, their onslaught and, and to continue to, to, to build weapons and munitions and so forth. So I think the more we see these connections, the more we make the, the, the, the, you know, the inescapable company, the inescapable conclusion that Ukraine is, is fighting war really on behalf of all of our security. And then the, and understand the flip of that in, in some ways, you know, people who say that we should focus exclusively on China. I think the counter argument is that China's fighting a proxy war against the west, you know, in, in Ukraine. And, and, and the foreign minister said as much, you know, in, in the last, in the last few weeks. So anyway, I hope we see the connections. I think to answer your question, the biggest mistake they've made is that they're o they're overextended. And I don't, I know that you, Ukraine has some significant problems now, manpower wise, especially on, on the front. And, and, but I do not believe that Russia has the capability to sustain an offensive, right? And, and so the, the analogy that, that, that I, I hope we see play out is, is the looting dwarf offensive, which I mentioned, which was the spring offensive in 1918. It seemed like the Germans were having tremendous success, right? They infiltrated, they got behind lives, but then they couldn't be supplied. They were cut off, right? And, and then of course the US then entered the war. This was, this was a gamble, right? That Lund do. He made the decision, the decision was made like November of nine, of 1917 to try to knock the US out with unrestricted war, submarine warfare, or keep us, keep us at bay, and then conduct this offensive, which they did in the, in the spring of, of 2018. That offensive failed. Now the US is gonna enter the war in Ukraine, but can we provide the support for Ukraine that builds up their capabilities? And, and, and of course, you know, I don't think the, the, the number of casualties Russia is taking is, is are sustainable. I mean, I, I mean, and I, I know I'm, I feel for you, you and your family. I hope everybody's okay and your family, I know that you're under, under intensifying onslaught from the Russians at the, at the moment. So Thank you. Thank you. On the side. Yes. Hi, my name is Sienna, I'm from Ohio, and I am a student at the University of Kentucky. I was wondering, for those of us who are going to go on to work for politicians or be policy analysts, how do we convince our bosses and the American public at large of informed evidence-based strategy over what's politically loyal and politically popular? And do you think we'll ever be able to change this mentality in the US government? Yeah, well, okay. It's a great, it's a great question. So, you know, I, I'm trying to think back if, if I've ever had a difficult boss. I'm, I'm trying to think. Well, so, so what, what, what are the one, one are the ways you can do it, I think, is to always try to clarify what, what the objective is. What is it that you want to achieve? That's what you should ask your, your boss, right? And then, and then, and then kind of, then kind of frame options. I, I really think that that, that that's what is most effective. And, you know, with President Trump, for example, I mean, president Trump is, is, you know, he, he, he's reflexively contrarian, right? So if, if everybody gets together and says, Hey, hey, Mr. President, we've got the perfect, this is the perfect plan. You know, just sign, just sign it. I can't do the opposite. Just despite everybody, you know, and, and, and, but, but also with, with President Trump, and I think with some other leaders as well, for politicians, I think, who go into certain positions, their background is not like in foreign policy. It's not national security. And so they'll have like ideas, they'll know something's not working and they'll be frustrated. So like, president Trump would say, general, general law, why don't we just bomb them? And I'm like, oh, well bomb, who, you know, Mr. President. And, and he would say, what? The labs, the labs in Mexico, I would say, well, you know, we could do that, but you know, let me bring you some options, you know, and people would be like shocked as they came outta the office, I'd be like, Hey, what are you saying is we have 90,000 people dying from fentanyl poisoning a year. What we're doing is not working. He wants options. You know? And so I think clarify the goal, what, what is the goal? And then what, what options can you bring that, that allow to, that, that leader to, to make a decision to, to, to achieve that goal or an objective. And, and so I, I, I think that works like 90% of the time, you know, sometimes it will won't work. And, and, but what you can also do is bring in people who have different perspectives. Another, another thing that we did with, with President Trump is, is to allow him to hear from other people. Like on Afghanistan, I was used up on Afghanistan. I just got chewed up by the people who were pushing a certain agenda and didn't want him to, didn't want him to, to consider other options, right? I was fighting to kind of guard his independence of judgment. And in the process, I was used up on the issue. Like he didn't wanna hear from me anymore about it. So I, I went to the vice president, I just went for help. You know, I went to the vice principal, man, you know, the Trump administration, you know, and I, I said, Hey, can you help me out on this? I, can you run these meetings? Can you lead, can you lead these engagements with the president? And he was fantastic to work with. And, and that, I think that was helpful to the president. The, the thing is, you know, what you really wanna do is have the attitude that, that you know, that, that it's a disservice to your boss to tell your boss what your boss wants to hear. And then how can you, how can you tell your boss what your boss doesn't want to hear in a way that's effective, you know, and, and will help achieve the outcome that you kind of bo your boss wants. A lot of times people understand what they want, think about what President Trump wants, right? He wants secure borders, he wants deregulation. He wants to jumpstart the American economy. He wants to apply new technologies like AI to unleash kind a second industrial revolution. He wants burden sharing in defense. He, you know, he, he wants more secure supply chains and he wants to invigorate the industrial base. Well, he signed me up for all that, you know, the problem is a lot of times the way he goes about it, right? I mean, do you really have to pick on Canada, man? I mean, really, I mean, so, so I mean, it just, so I, I think, I think understand what the boss wants and then bring and bring options. Yes. I just got the mic over here. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, sir. You've written really meaningfully on civil military relations, and needless to say, it's a, a politically divisive time right now for those of us who are currently serving the military, or for our peers here who are looking at beginning careers in the military or in public service more generally, what advice would you have on maintaining the professionalism of, of the military as a profession and more broadly, public service during times like this? Well, great question, and make sure you ask that to Secretary Mattis tomorrow night, too, so he doesn't get off on that having, without having an answer. No, I, Hey, I think what you do is you focus on your role, right? And this is what, you know, epic Heus said is, you know, this is what is most important to play well, the role assigned you, and for our military, since our founding, we don't have, we, we don't make policy, right? And I, I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding about that in Washington. I, if anybody read secretary, he's book. I read it. So I would know how he was thinking. And that's, that was my one, one of my biggest concerns about that book and his attitude, and I'm sure he is learning on the job here and everything, was that he was blaming so-called like woke generals. I'm like, man, I don't know any woke generals, man. I mean, I don't know any woke gen. I mean, really. So, so, but, but he, there was a, a, I think a, an effort by the Biden administration to push what I would call like a radical social or political agenda on the military to, I would say infect the military with some of these postmodernist, various critical theory approaches to life and, and, and, and our institution that tells you that, hey, judge the person next to you by, based on their identity category, rather than, you know, what's in their heart, what's in their soul, how tough they are as a soldier, for example, what their sense of honor is, are they willing to sacrifice for one another as part of the team? That's what, that's what we judge soldiers by, not by identity category or, or had kind of this radical, what I call like the radical DEI agenda, which is a quality of outcome rather than a quality of opportunity. You know, the valorization of victimhood, right? This doesn't work in the military. It's actually destructive to, to, to military, to cohesion and combat effectiveness, right? So they were pushing this, and so, but now what you're seeing within the, the Trump administration is, is the cure being administered in a way that could be worse than the disease, right? I mean, in terms of, you know, some of the approaches that they're taking. So I think what's the fundamental to us in, in our profession is to understand we don't make the policy right, and what we owe at the senior levels, right? We owe our best military advice, but there's, we have to really think about how to ensure that we're not crossing the line between advice and advocacy, because nobody elects generals to make policy. And so if our militaries making policy or trying to influence policy, you're actually undermining the constitution because sovereignty lies with the people, and the people elect politicians to do that. And so the politicians are responsible, right? To, to the people. So think about our role and, and for a junior military officer, you know, your job is simple. It's to make, you're part of the Army, Marine Corps, navy, you know, coast Guard, air Force, space force, the best it can be, and to be combat ready and combat effective, you know, and, and just try to ignore everything else. And then, and then if soldiers or somebody tries to engage you in a political conversation, just don't, just don't do it. And this isn't new. It's just like everything with President Trump. It's like the, the, okay, who's seen? This is Spinal Tap. Okay? You have to watch this. This is part of your professional development. You have to watch all the Christopher Guest movies beginning with, this is Spinal Tap, but you must watch like Best in show too and stuff. I mean, this is historical, okay? So, but there's an amp that goes to 11, you know, for, and this is Spinal Tap. Everything with the Trump goes to 11. But I, you know, I did a summary court martial for a warrant officer when I was a lieutenant Colonel squatted commander, because he passed around an email disparaging President Clinton, I think it was for the Monica Lewinsky affair. I can't remember what it was, but this is a, a warrant officer saying to a big military distro list disparagement of the commander in chief. I'm like, Hey, court martial. You know? So I, I think don't be, we have to be intolerant of the, and not allow our military to get drug into a partisan politics, right? And then, and then for maybe for General Madison, myself, others, you know, our message to politicians should be keep us out of it. Keep us out of it, right? Drag yourselves down in the mud, you know, but leave the military out of it. So, but I think that's, you've got, this goes back to Samuel Huntington and, and you know, objective versus subjective control and all that, but I think a lot of it's on us and we just can't, we just can't take the bait. You know, I hated to see CQ Brown go, he's a true professional. Gee, what has he said lately? Nothing. Right. Indicator of what a true professional that guy is, right? You know, general Kane the new chairman, he's a fantastic officer, right? The way that, the way that swap went about was terrible. But, you know, I think, you know, I, when I look at our senior leaders, some of those are just leaving Oli and, and these guys, you know, that, that, that, you know, Illa, they, they've done I think a fantastic job up to this point. But there have been really disturbing trends, you know, and I think we just have to be professional, stay out of it.