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slash row. Coming up on the Jordan
Harbinger show Wars, human people fight for the same
reasons that do cities identified, 2,500 years ago,
fear, honor, and interest. And so, if you're not addressing
the drivers of conflict, you're just treating the symptoms and
you're going to perpetuate. That conflict is going to go on
longer and then necessary. It is a contest of wills.
It really requires. You convincing your enemy that
your enemy has been defeated. Welcome to the show.
I'm Jordan Harbinger on the Jordan Harbinger show we decode
the stories secrets and skills of the World's Most Fascinating
People. If you're new to this show, we
have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game,
astronauts, and entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even
the occasional National Security advisor, and each show turns our
guests wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build
a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a
better critical thinker and today, like I said, the
occasional National Security advisor, we have Admiral HR
McMaster with us today. This is a fun discussion about
how the world has continued to get worse while we're
preoccupied with partisan discourse and other crap.
That's ruining the country. We also dip into Iran.
China North Korea and how he and his team develop strategies that
not only affect the United States but the entire free
world, I had a great time with this one.
And if you're interested in global Affairs and the world in
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They contribute to the course, come join us, you'll be in smart
company. Now, here's General HR McMaster
In your job, you have to take every perspective and then you
have to decide which one or which pieces of which
perspectives are actually going to yield the best result.
And that seems like a impossibly difficult, essentially lose-lose
scenario. Where you and or everyone
around, you is constantly second-guessing your decisions.
If it's not you, it's somebody else.
Where do you even begin that process?
Because you have to take your emotion out of the decision.
Ray dalio had that same problem, right?
You have 1000 inputs. Come from a thousand different
people. Yours are life and death though,
so you can't just go. Well, I liked Jim and so I went
with his decision and you know, now we are where we are, and
there's a huge problem. How do you evaluate the inputs,
right? Which word, first of all, you
got assemble team. They can bring together an
interdisciplinary perspectives because I mean War conflict.
It's a complex Endeavor. And you have to understand
really what is driving and constraining the other in the in
the Battlegrounds. This book I just finished.
I mean, I Introduced this concept of strategic empathy, to
try to view these complex competitions from the
perspective of the other. It's not a new idea, this goes
back to you know sunsoo know, you don't know your enemy but
then you also have to know the complex environment in which
you're operating and so war is this continuous interaction of
opposites, right? You and maybe multiple enemies
and adversaries inside of a complex environment and you
nobody's going to have before Range of expertise necessary to
understand that complex problem, set holistically.
So you have to bring the right team together and then the key
thing is and, you know, as a historian it's all about the
question. You got to ask the right
questions and you're better off with a general broad question.
Like what is the nature of this conflict?
You know, who is the enemy? What is their strategy?
What are their objectives is through?
Asking these kind of questions and creating you know a
collaborative environment with people who bring NG
interdisciplinary expertise. That's how you begin.
I think to frame a problem and apply design thinking to these
complex challenges were facing. How do you make it okay for
people to be wrong around you or to give you advice that turns
out to be wrong? Because I would imagine you have
to Foster that because otherwise you just have people that go.
I'm not 100% sure. I'm not going to say anything.
Even though I'm the Iran expert on this, I just don't want to
get in trouble and then people died as a result.
It's all about the climate that you Foster, you know, there's
this conventional wisdom about the military, that's very high.
Article, you know, nobody speaks out of turn.
That's not been my experience. It's really what you allude to
the beginning of the stakes are pretty darn hot.
So what you want to do is encourage people to be
participating of to not hold back.
Also, you want to create an organization that is really
freed in terms of their ability to think and share their
thoughts. But also in the military and an
environment in which people are free to act and to actually make
mistakes of times I mean, because the most dangerous
course of action, typically in combat is to not do anything.
Thing. And so what you want to do is
encourage initiative at lower levels and to do that you have
to be able to underwrite risk. And you have to be able to I
think communicate clearly what you want to achieve overall.
Tell everyone on your team as much as you can about what
you're trying to achieve and how just generally you want to
achieve it and free them up to take the initiative.
How much does somebody at your level employee or ask people to
employ outside of the box thinking?
And I know that sounds like a cliche but you here in the
Terry, like you said, it's hierarchical, you don't want you
see people with the middle and at the lower level say like, no,
we don't want people to think too much.
Follow the exact instructions because otherwise you're going
to get your head shot off. But like at the higher level, it
seems like you have to be thinking, not just like the
enemy. But you have to say what sort of
other outside the box thinking can we employ?
Because we see Russia doing this with cyber warfare while Russia,
Iran China, you see our enemies doing this.
We can't just be, it goes back. I saw this movie when I was a
kid board, Napoleon was kind of Invading.
All these places in the guys were just marching up and
they're shooting cannons and they're just walking slowly
towards this row of cannons and everyone's getting blown to
bits. And I remember asking my dad,
why are they just walking slowly toward the enemy?
And my dad's, like that's how they fought back then.
And I thought this is I'm eight and that's the dumbest idea I've
ever seen in my entire life. There's a ten-year-old in the
front with a drum, they're all gonna die.
No that's why you need an organization that encourages
initiative and problem solving and thinking imaginatively, you
know, and this is one of the strengths of American Army, and
the Continental Army and armed militias in the revolution,
right? This was getting these were the
tactics that the British were employment, even in kind of
dense unfavorable terrain and the South, right?
And you had this combination of Riflemen, it within militias and
skirmishers that would be out in front and just post some of the
much different look than that. He had been accustomed to.
It was confounding too many of these British commanders.
You know, that my least favorite saying you hear people use
sometimes is what, hey, stay in your lane.
I mean how No, get out of your lane and think about problems
from different perspective. Consult others who bring
imaginative thinking to these complex problems.
I think in the military you know what we emphasize is seizing
retaining and exploiting the initiative and the initiative is
you gain it by doing something, unexpected by Shocking your
adversary, surprising your adversary and then it's kind of
like a boxing match. If you land a job, you know, you
got to follow with your right, you know, very quickly.
And I think Just an important concept to emphasize the
initiative in our Command Post in Iraq.
When we're fighting a really brutal determined enemy of
al-Qaeda in Iraq, in their training base.
This was kind of the Fort Benning, Georgia of al-Qaeda and
Iraq or the Quantico Virginia. You know, training base.
We had hanging our Command Post to questions for three
questions. Who else needs to know?
Because one of the ways you seize the initiative, is you
share information. Horizontally across your
organization and you condition members of your organization to
say, oh my my buddy over there, he's got a problem, she's got a
problem, you know, I can help solve that problem.
And so now you're closing the interview with multiple dilemmas
because everybody is working together and it kind of
self-synchronizing way within an organization.
You know, you can tell you really, I think an effective
maneuver unit in the Army by just listening to the radio or
their Communications going straight up and down.
Or is the majority of their conversations?
Is it going? Horizontally across the
organization so it's who else needs.
No, the other big question in there was, where are the
opportunities? And how do we exploit that you
do a lot of bad things happen in combat, right?
Lot of bad things happened in lecture but if you look at what
happens to say, okay, well, how do I turn this to my advantage,
right? How do I bend this situation
back to our goals and objectives?
And then finally, the question was, how do we retain an exploit
the initiative? Because you don't want to let
off right? You never want to become
complacent. And and so you have this
conditioning of a unit to take initiative, I think is mentally.
Important. He actually mentioned this in
the book Battlegrounds, which by the way, that I listen to it an
audio and it was like 19 hours. How what does that in Pages 400
or something? 500 pages.
Right. I think something like.
Yeah that's that's including notes though.
Yeah, it's a page-turner. Jordan I'm telling well, I read
the whole thing. It was a long weekend but it was
a good one. Yeah.
You mentioned in the book Battlegrounds which will link in
the show notes that going back to what you were saying.
Exploiting the initiative. We run the risk of / are not
doing this in Iraq and Afghanistan Where We Are.
Like okay, we did this big Surge and we got them on their back
foot. Now, let's get everybody out of
here and go home and it's like, wait, no, this is if they're
down. This is when you pin them, you
don't go. Okay, well, let's wait for them
to get back up, rest, have some water, get a meal in, get a good
night's sleep, and then pounce back up on us.
Like, that's kind of what we're doing with these at and the
enemy over there from the sound of it.
Right? And what I argue is that one of
the reasons why these wars have been longer than anticipated and
frustrating is we took the short term Approaches, where long-term
problems of? We think unrealistically, a lot
of times about war because we're biased towards thinking about
change over continuity, right? Hey, we've got this new Nifty
technology that's going to make work fast cheap efficient.
Well, actually, they're a lot of continuities in war that you
have to consider. I mean, we're seeing extension
of politics and I write about these in the conclusion, right?
So you have to get to a sustainable political outcome so
your point toward you know, the consolidation of military games
to get to those plug rockem's. It's not like an option.
Beige it word, something we've always had to do.
The second factor is that your Wars human people fight?
For the same reasons that the city's identified 2,500 years
ago, fear, honor and interest. And so if you're not addressing
the drivers of conflict, you're just treating the symptoms and
you're going to perpetuate. That conflict is going to go on
longer than necessary Wars uncertain.
Because as I mentioned already this this interaction with your
adversaries that makes the future course of events.
You more anything but linear and then finally Wars.
It is a contest of wills, it really requires.
You, convincing your enemy that your enemy has been defeated,
right? And when you're saying, hey, you
know, I'm just going to take the George Costanza approach toward,
you know, and at leave on a high note, practice your your enemies
going to say. Well, I'll just, I'll just wait
these guys out, right? So I think really making sure
that you consider continuity as well as change when confronting
really any kind of complex problem.
But especially War, I think is very important.
Why do we keep fighting? I think he said this on 60
Minutes a few days ago, will link to that video in the show
notes, if it's up online, I don't know if it is.
I downloaded it in a way that I don't think you can normally do,
but I'll leave it at that. But you said on 60 Minutes that
we keep fighting a one year war, what is it twenty times twenty
years in Afghanistan? We're up to 19 now, almost 20,
right? So, is that?
Because, and I'm not asking you to assign blame necessarily but
is that? Because military leaders are
like, this is going to be over because y'all should know
better, right? Or is this politicians going?
Hey, look. Get it done yesterday and let's
just get it done as fast as possible.
So I don't have to hear about it when I'm campaigning again.
Well, you know, it's a combination of both Jordan.
So in the 1990s after that, we were flushed with the victory in
the Gulf War, right? And the tremendous technological
military prowess and so there was this assumption that grew
over time. Associated with this idea of a
revolution in military Affairs and to work all the RMA, right?
Future war was going to be fast cheap and efficient waged mainly
kind of it standoff range and so in a I can understand it worked
to an extent because we empowered afghan.
Militias, with our tremendous are power, which tremendous,
Special Operations, forces and was Intelligence Officers, the
end, they defeated the Taliban regime in terms of driving them,
out of Kabul. But what they didn't do, what
they couldn't do is consolidate gains.
And then, of course, we turned our attention to Iraq.
Then there wasn't a surge in Afghanistan for, you know, under
President Obama, but he announced the withdrawal of
those troops at the same time as a reinforcement.
So I mean, it could go on about this.
This. But essentially it was a
combination of military and civilian leaders who didn't
really, maybe understand completely what we need to
happen or there wasn't the will necessary to commit the effort
over that amount of time. And at that level of effort, you
mentioned that strategic empathy was one of the weapons.
Can you give an example of that one in the book is from Iran?
Where we just maybe don't quite understand what the enemy wants
at. All, right?
What we tend to kind of rush to what we would like to do, right?
So our strategies sometimes are based on What the purveyor
prefers rather than with the situation demands in Iran if
there's a pattern to US policy toward Iran since the Iranian
Revolution in 1979 it is that a belief in a conciliatory
approach to Iran and that will affect a change not only in the
behavior of the Iranian regime but in the regimes very nature
of well it hasn't panned out and that's because we undervalue the
way that the Revolutionary ideology drives that regime and
we pay attention and stay. Said, you know, to the shop
window of the regime, which is typically the President, right?
And so, we think in the 1990s, this guy hot, to me comes in
after the Khobar Towers bombing that killed 17 American Airmen
and President Clinton's thinking about, well, I wonder if we
ought to strike Iran and try to restore degree of deterrence in
this proxy war, they're fighting against us and but there's a new
president coming in the guy's a librarian.
He must be not much nicer than the other guy don't, but he's
the shop window for the regime. The regime is the supreme
leader, who is driven That revolutionary ideology and the
Islamic revolutionary guards Corps, who were the Protectors
of the Revolution and whose Goods Force exports, the
Revolution, and its really sustained campaign against the
great Satan, you know, United States, the little Satan Israel,
and the Arab monarchies. And so I what I argue for in the
book is, hey, we have to just based our strategy toward a ran,
our policy toward Iran on the reality that this regime is
permanently hostile to US, unless There's a transformation
really from within that's going to be up to the Iranian people,
but our policy should be based on not on wishful, thinking
about the regime, but the reality of what drives you.
Yeah, it seems kind of crazy to end.
Look, I'm no expert on International Affairs.
I'm a freaking podcaster. But like from my whole life has
been the 80s, I was born in 1980 so that was sort of defined by
my mom telling me when I was very little about the hostage
crisis and I was like, how do we have people stuck in a house in
another hostile country for over a year.
How This even possible. We have all the Allies in the
world and then now that I'm older.
I'm like we have this crazy religious theocracy who non-stop
on their own television and media.
Talk about destroying the West entirely and turning the rest of
the world into a Theocratic crap.
Pile like the one that they're controlling, they have numerous
internal revolutions that they put down brutally because the
people of Iran don't want to live under them either.
And then every year it's like, well, let's just buy some more
time while they try to get nuclear weapons.
What's the worst thing that can happen?
And everyone, I feel like a lot of us who I think are just maybe
oversimplifying it but I'd like to thank have a little bit of
sense are going. What are you doing?
You're just going to wait until they have weapons like North
Korea and then were then we're just going to pray that they
don't use them even though they're shipping Hezbollah and
terrorist organizations as many weapons as they can get their
hands on by the truckload. We're going to wait out their
nuclear ambition. What are we doing?
Why you're right? Well I enjoy I think what you're
alluding to is, this tendency toward mirror Imaging.
And this is one of the features that I write about in connection
with this idea of strategic Narcissism right there.
Yes, yeah. We just we just kind of assumed
that we're going to behave the same way.
We would behave and I wrote a book on Vietnam years ago,
titled dereliction of Duty in. It's about how and why Vietnam
became an American War and what was extraordinary about?
That's about that story. I think when the elements of it
is, how this mirror Imaging affected, the Americanization of
the war in Vietnam and in particular, the assumption that
Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese communist leadership and Hanoi
would respond just the way we would to our actions.
And in fact, one of the memoranda that came out of the
Pentagon around that time. Talked about Ho Chi Minh being
like the reasonable man in English, common law.
Well, he wasn't right. He was driven, you'll buy a
nationalist and a communist ideology that defied.
You know, that really what our calculations were based on the
reasonable man of English, common law.
Yeah. I think we make this mistake a
lot. We often hear arguments like, oh
well Kim Jang, Hoon are sore. Kim Jong-il or whoever we're
talking about at the time, I guess, Kim Now, of course, is
going to be rational, he's going to react irrationally to
whatever we're doing, but it's not even the right kind of
rational. It's like we're thinking, well,
he's gonna do what's best for his country and this and that
the other thing it's like, no, you're talking about a desperate
who's in power at all costs. The cost of his own people
murders. His own family members with
cannons. He's not going to react
rationally. It's like telling yourself that
your cat is going to react rationally or your two year.
Olds going to react rationally. Why would they do that?
They're not looking at long-term consequences.
They're just trying to hold. Add on to the next day so they
don't die. And what you could say is it's a
different form of rationality, right?
You could say, you know, right. Kim showing us a rational
person, based on how he calculates his interest and
makes his decisions. And as you mentioned, he's
driven mainly by. How do I keep the Kim family
regime in power, right? This is the only hereditary
Communist dictatorship in history, right?
And, and, you know, he doesn't want to be the one to let it go,
right? He's the third in line.
Well, also, there's probably no safe place on Earth for somebody
like Because even if he negotiated a treaty with half
the world and said, look, leave me alone, I'm going to go live
in privacy and Panama like the Shah of Iran did in the 80s or
something like that. Someone's going to go find that
guy and that's going to be the end of it.
He has too many enemies over too long of a period of time.
I mean even if it's just the North Korean people, they're
going to trample him to death. They get half a chance, right?
And those in his Network to write this out of criminalized
patronage Network that he's created or around him.
And so this This ruling class is fearful right there in your full
of any kind of the North Koreans.
Just, I think, at one point he will maybe I should have a say
in how I'm governed, you know, maybe I should end this corrupt.
Brutal dictatorship that is just ringing the life out of the
country. I mean, as start millions of
their own people, it seems like there's no win for them because
even the elite in that country are people that probably make
the equivalent of 50,000, maybe half that US dollars per year.
They can't go live in Monaco or Panama.
For the rest of their lives, if they call it quits over there,
they will be eaten alive. So they're holding the wolf by
the ears over there. But, you know, I think what's
changed a little bit in North Korea.
One of the factors that are bringing out in the book, is
this, there is kind of a new class.
They're like, it's kind of an emerging middle class or
privilege, classmate in Pyongyang.
And it's not clear what, how they're going to react when they
start, really, really feeling the pinch of maximum pressure
and it's unprecedented. Un sanctions have been placed.
Thank goodness. I mean, based on large measure
on Nikki Haley's her Ali and efforts there when she was our
ambassador to the UN so if we can actually get those sanctions
enforced, I think there's a chance.
Maybe that we can test this thesis that Kim Jong on can be
convinced that his regime is safer without these weapons than
he is with them. Yeah that's a good point because
I think as soon as you get a I guess critical mass of people
that realize that the only way they're not going to starve to
death is to walk across a frozen River to China and smuggle in
and rice and other food. They're going to realize that
something is wrong. Especially when those people
start to see the outside world, which is inevitable.
I mean, even getting information is tough.
But if you have a cousin whose job, it is to go to China every
week and smuggle food and goods in and out, they're going to
tell you, hey, there are dog bowls with more food than we've
seen on any holiday on the floor in China, you know, there's
something wrong with our government.
I just liked this book by lock off called the real North Korea
and I used it heavily. As I was writing the chapter,
it's really well done. And the guys one of the most
foremost experts in and what was I think need about what he said.
And you talked about how the, you know, the muun government,
South Korean government is really anxious.
You know, to remove the minefields and barriers between
north and south. And the point like oh it makes
us hate the main barriers psychological, right?
These are people who've been conditioned that you can't even
have an independent thought. So he thinks as you're alluding
to what is most important is to give them access to information,
get them to begin to have their own thoughts.
And that's the psychological barrier.
The mental barrier that is going to be I think, most importantly
when eventually the peninsula Unifies right.
That's going to be the biggest obstacle I think.
Yeah it seems like it almost will happen from within the
military what the South will end up getting some communication
through a lot of effort and a lot of back-channeling that says
hey all that artillery. That's aimed at you.
We're not going to fire that thing but we need you to come in
and figure this out because it's so much.
I mean it's going to cost what three trillion to develop the
North and that's just to build what roads and electrical
infrastructure. And it's not going to bring it
up to Snuff and the South that's going to take two generations.
Probably to do something like that.
At. Yeah a lot of your listeners are
probably seen this you know this nighttime satellite.
Yeah. Edge of of North Korea.
You know what? Actually?
It's very sad situation in the north but you know we ought to
feel pretty good about what the situation looks like in the
South. Right?
Yeah. Because you know at the end of
the Korean War and this is one of the arguments are making the
book write about no short-term solutions to long-term problems,
the situation in South Korea. It look pretty bleak in 1953,
right? You had a country that was
devastated by Decades of War, a brutal occupation.
Country had been stripped of your really.
Any tree is had no raw materials.
It had an illiterate population and a hostile neighbor.
Right? Who's going to sign up for that
program? What we did, right?
And the country didn't make a rapid progress, really until 70s
late 70s, and the 80s. The reforms of the 80s is when
it really took off right now, the Korean people deserve the
credit for me to share the South Koreans.
No friend of mine was a Catholic priest and a chaplain father,
Vince Burns. One of the greatest guys in the
world Philadelphia and and And, you know, he said, yeah.
When I look at stuff three, I just think that after the war
they started rebuilding and didn't even take a coffee out
because they are an incredibly, you know, industrious and and
entrepreneurial people and then but all that's been stifled in
the north right, what's different?
It's the same people north of the 38th parallel but the people
nor the 38th parallel have just been subjected to this, there's
totalitarian brutal regime. You're listening to the Jordan
Harbinger show with our guest General.
HR McMaster, we'll be right back and now, back to HR McMaster on
the Jordan Harbinger show. I actually, I've been to North
Korea a few times on tours and things like that.
And you see a lot of people that are really intelligent, I've
heard sort of, I guess you would call it not locker room talk,
what's the word I'm looking for like kind of like when you're
going to the bathroom and you're like so what's it really?
Like you know there's guys that have told me things like we just
want to be normal. And all this Kim Jong-il all
this Kim jong-un's stuff. A lot of people think it's
pretty stupid, but we just don't want to get in trouble and then
you leave the bathroom and it's like, sorry, I don't speak
English, right? I mean, it's interesting to hear
that kind of thing, because it's not that everyone thinks that
way. But there's certainly an
educated middle / higher class where they just go.
This is the dumbest thing in the world.
I've been to China. I want on a business trip.
I know they have electricity after 9 p.m. unlike us.
Right? What's a North?
Korean regime is Donna's. You know, they've done really
not as sophisticated as China has from a technological
perspective. Give but they've weaponized
people's social networks. Right.
So you haven't, they have informants spread out, like,
with in every village. And, you know, if there are
suspected of saying your crossword against a regime, they
just disappear. And they go on these gulags or
worse. Yet they're killed, you know.
So it's really it's a humanitarian catastrophe there
in the north and it's worth calling that out.
You're a little bit disappointing, these days and,
you know, I got taught some more of my chakra and friends about
it. South Korea seems like they're
not as supportive of some of the escapees from the north as they
Past and I don't understand that, you know, I think that the
right answer is to welcome them, right?
Give them a jump start, you know, as entrepreneurs in the
South and help them with education, right?
Because if and when that Peninsula your comes back
together they're going to need a Cadre of people who go can go up
to the north. Yeah, and can help rebuild, what
is becoming a more and more kind of destitute but you know,
dangerous place, right? Because you know the Kim regime,
they make the choice, whether resources go and they haven't
been cutting back on the missile program.
Or the nuclear program or the military broadly?
Yeah, it's scary. I used to live in the former
East Germany at that was a reunification process that was
markedly different. Cause it was just like, Hey,
we're all the same people, get the cranes out.
Let's build up the city of Berlin and then go and clean
out. All these old chemical
factories, and sell them to Dow and have a modernized North
Korea's starting from like 50 years behind where East, Germany
was, and probably a lot more of a cultural barrier, because at
least in East Germany. They knew who Pink Floyd was in
the head. Bon Jovi records instead, but
Annie In North Korea it's like just a complete wall, right?
Just what you see, some of the latest tensions between North
and South about rich. Some of these groups that have
been sending information into the North Via balloon, right?
This is what really has Pyongyang up in arms.
It's why they blew up the building.
That was supposed to help coordinate between north and
south. And and you really that's I
think what they see as the greatest threat to them, right.
As any kind of information that the regime does not directly
control going back, started to the macro level you.
Talk about integrated strategies.
So not only mapping out, strategies of combat, or of
relations, but also the emotions and ideology behind other
nations in their actions. We're kind of touching on this
right now, with North Korea, you mentioned as well with Iran.
Is somebody actually doing that or was it just something you
recommend? And it's like your office does
it? But other people are kind of
going. Now we don't need that.
We just need Invasion plans. No we actually did right and
what's really important about to understand about the National
Security Council staff is that that National Security Council
was that? Alt after World War Two And it
on the beginning of the Cold War to avoid another Pearl Harbor,
right? That was one of the big lessons
of Pearl. Harbor is your, this one agency
knew this but the other didn't know, it was also less time
9/11, you know, in the 9/11 commission and the establishment
of the Director of National Intelligence, whatever you think
that decision, I mean that was a it was an adaptation meant to
avoid that ever happening again. Well what do these sort of
failures that we View? At least we understand better,
at least in retrospect always highlight is a lack of
coordination and integration between departments and
agencies. You could say At about the covid
response do is that in some of the biggest disappointments in
our ability to generate at, you know, biomedical response to the
crisis was really having to do with lack of coordination and
integration across the government.
The NSC staff is where that joint plays.
I think I can happen in the government, right?
Because you could appoint like Health and Human Services, hey
lead a group of whatever but you know those other departments
don't work for that department, right?
They all work for the White House overall and whereas the
national screwdrivers never direct anything with the
National Security advisor, should do is run up.
Process. Right?
That gives the results of the best analysis.
That's interdisciplinary analysis.
We talked about at the beginning of our conversation but then
also results in these integrated strategies where we can combine
the elements of National Power. We have so many competitive
advantages, you know, as as the United States to be able to
integrate our diplomatic efforts our economic efforts our
financial efforts informational efforts and then you military as
well. But intelligence so we have law
enforcement right? We can bring So many tools to
bear and especially if you extend that to our private
sector, where there's so much potential and then if you
extended even further to our like-minded partners and allies
internationally, I mean, we can do this, we can overcome these
challenges and I think, oftentimes, we just don't think
clearly enough about how to integrate those elements so that
their synergistic rep. Yeah.
Or at least not in conflict with each other, right?
If we can just get everybody pulling in the same direction
and then what you do is you develop a high level.
Strategy, right? You're not going to tell you the
Department of State how to do things or defense or anything
for the White House. That's not useful but you should
identify, where are the areas where the Departments have to
work together? What are the important?
Simultaneous actions and initiatives and programs.
And operations are to be conducted and what are
sequential, right? How do we build on each other?
And then once you have that strategy, you got to be
flexible, right? I mean, the over the world
changes, right? Ravishers react.
But without that strategy, when something happens, what I've
seen, it be governed. A lot of times, the high levels
of Specially our government in than just react to that event.
Oh, look, what happened, an attack against us or a Kurdish
referendum in Iraq, or fill in the blank.
But if you have a strategy, you can say oh wow, you know this if
we didn't think that was going to happen.
But how do we Bend or Torque that event?
So we such as we can make progress toward our objectives,
right? How do we can overcome obstacles
to progress or exploit opportunities?
So I think strategies, you're never just written in stone and
like, you call it a day. Hey yeah, we're done problem
solved, but without a strategy, your Reactive, right?
And your, I think what much less effective at being able to
advance your interest from the outside looking in and
especially, from reading your book, correct me.
If I'm wrong, I came away with the impression that China
certainly has a strategy. They've integrated their private
companies because every company is essentially owned by the
Communist Party in large part and also Russia / Vladimir
Putin, because he's the only one pulling the strings over there,
has a strategy, but the US, like you said, seems to be reacting.
Meanwhile, Putin's like good, okay?
I'm going to take that and move that piece over here.
And I want to do this in the China's doing, The same thing
all around the world and the US is kind of like juggling and
then China throws us a chainsaw. And we're juggling that and
Putin throws us a grenade. We're juggling that but nobody's
going like hey what's the plan for putting all these things
down and then us moving forward with what we need to do.
Well that's what we Endeavor to do and I believe that's what we
produced Jordan. So if your listeners I'd
recommend the highly readable December, 2017, National
Security strategies that states. Oh yeah, we developed this for
President Trump and yeah I mean I think it's a A document, you
know I mean I don't know who's going to win the election.
I think whoever does that document is going to stand the
test of time and it reflects really us putting into place
some long overdue and important shifts in our approach to these
complex challenges in particular.
I think that the approach towards China, we do have a
strategy. Now, you often hear all well,
you know, the truck ministration is doing X and Y and Z but they
don't have a strategy. Well, you know, X Y & Z actually
that amounts to a strategy. If we are protecting our
industry and our Search and development from China sustained
campaign of industrial Espionage.
That's a good thing. If we're simultaneously
investing more, so we can maintain our technological
advantages in connection with the emerging data economy as
well. As from a perspective, that's a
good thing too. If we are indicting and calling
out apt 10, their main hacking organization, and we're doing it
with 12, other countries, simultaneously.
That sounds good to me if we're promoting transparent standards
and infrastructure investment internationally, if You are
conducting arms sales to the Taiwanese so they can deter
China from forcibly subsuming Taiwan into the mainland.
When you look at broadly, the broad range of efforts.
It is a strategy. It's pretty clear and I think
that, you know, whoever's elected in November will
continue it. I think it's a really important
2004 policy is one of the reasons I wrote the book is.
Yeah, it should be controversial.
Like if you're when we were attacked on 9/11, Al Qaeda
didn't Target Democrats or Republicans.
Applicants right, right? They targeted Americans.
And so it's we need to come together on these challenges
relevant to foreign policy and National Security and work
together. And as you mentioned, you know,
these are necrotic regimes, they can have a consistent long-term
policy, right? They can announce, you know,
China is made in China 2025, right, right?
Or by 2050, you know, the Chinese Communist party will
have reached X, right? But we have to strive to do
better because it seems like in this Parson environment where in
Italy and demonstration comes in and gets any, what do I press?
Us to do All Odds. Do you undo that?
Yeah. Do you think our divisions
domestically right now? Are one of the greatest threats
to our national security. Absolutely.
Jordan they are and your average grocery doing everything they
can to exploit them. I mean Russia is masterful at
this you know people talk about meddling in the election 2016
that was part of it. The election battling was part
of a campaign that was designed mainly to drive us apart from
each other and pit us against each other on really the three
main issues, right? Number one Like 80% of the
Russian bot and troll traffic from this Ira, this internet
internet research. Yeah.
Right was want to race then a distant second.
You know, was were issues of immigration gun control and so
forth, we can be our own worst enemies unless we come Together
As Americans and I hope we can restore confidence, you know,
and who we are and in our Democratic principles and
institutions and processes. Do you think we kind of slapped
after the Cold War ended? The USSR Falls?
There's no more authoritarian superpowers but we just think.
All right liberal democracy capitalism.
Them. We win pack up all the tanks or
whatever. We're good now.
And then it's like, Vladimir Putin goes, alright?
They are sleeping. They think they've won start
screwing with him. I mean, that's what it looks
like from my perspective. Where, you know, I told these
stories in the introduction of the book, you know, that I bore
witness to this this growing confidence, right?
Because, you know, our regiment was patrolling the East West,
German border the day, that East, Germany, lifted travel
restrictions to the West, right? And so that was a time of great
Jubilation, right? And yeah, celebration, and it
should have been We won the Cold War without firing a shot,
right? The Soviet Union collapsed and
so that was a boost to us and then our same regiments deployed
to a hot War and the Gulf War and demonstrate our ability to
overmatch Saddam Hussein's military.
Then I think that led to a period of complacency based on
that overconfidence in the 90s and that overconfidence was in
many ways, it was a setup, right?
Was a setup. I think for some of the
disappointments of the early 2000s, not just the 9/11
attacks, but but also the unanticipated, lengthen
difficulties The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I read about how they've our confidence was shaken even more.
You know, by the 2008 financial crisis, it's time for us.
I think to get away from this kind of dramatic swing, you
know, from what was over optimism and maybe hubris right
to pessimism and like resignation maybe as we looked
at foreign policy like how was something in the middle and
that's really what the book is an argument for.
It seems like Putin and our enemies in general played a
pretty poor hand. Well, and the US and Europe,
played a really great hand pretty poorly.
That's a very Broad. I realized, but would you agree
with that? I mean we it seems like we had
everything we needed and Putin was like, well, this is all, I
got went all in and we just didn't react till now.
Yeah, and you can get a lot done if you're absolutely
unscrupulous right. But Putin knows he's in a
position of relative weakness, right?
The trends are in his favor. Especially now 2020s been a bad
year for everybody, right? Yeah.
It's been a really bad year for Vladimir Putin, right?
It's supposed to be a big year for him.
He's supposed to have a big celebration of the victory in
the Great Patriotic, War World War Two.
He was supposed to actually celebrate Extension in power,
that's changes to the Constitution until 2036 but of
course what? In a pandemic like it hit all of
us. What else did them collapse of
oil prices? Right?
The demographic Trends in the country are not good.
They got their economies, the size of Italy's or Texas has the
canal. What does Putin do?
He says, okay if I can't be on top I'm gonna drag everybody
else down. Yeah, that's what he's been
doing. You pictures himself as the last
man standing in Europe because everything he's doing to us,
he's done it earlier. Are in many ways, more
intentionally to Europeans, right to divide European
countries from each other. And also to divide communities
within each European country. Pit them against each other.
Again, it's his effort to drag everybody down.
It's a very Russian thing to do. And I don't mean that against
Russian people, I mean there's this in fact I think most
Russians will agree with this. There's this story and I always
get it wrong but it's a farmer has one cow and his neighbor has
two cows and then he gets a wish or something like that and he
goes, okay, great kill. One of my neighbors cows like
not Me 15, cows kill one of my neighbors couch.
There's different variations of this to write like a guy loses,
an eye in his enemy has both of his eyes and he goes, oh, popo
that guy's eyes out when he gets a wish and it's not just a
Russian thing. But these are like parables in
Russian history that go well, before probably back through
even the time of the Czar these things were existing, right?
I tell the Russian peasant Story.
I mean that I got to give full credit to my colleague at
Stanford. Catherine, Stoner, who told me
that two cows story and I used the book.
It is a perfect metaphor, right? I mean Putin wants to kill our
cowl and so let's not let him do it, right?
Let's, you know, let's not be our own worst enemies on this.
What do you think about countries like Germany?
Making these huge multibillion-dollar?
Is it, a natural gas pipeline? Basically is going to make
Germany, massively dependent on Russia.
It seems like a terrible idea. I wouldn't want to buy a key
part of my infrastructure from North Korea or Iraq for and
Iraq's it for all intensive purposes.
At least a friendly country or not outright hostile.
It seems like the worst idea. Ever, I just don't understand
it. It's a terrible idea and, you
know, your President Trump, if he's been tough on Germany, you
know, but, and I love Germany. I mean, I lived there for six
and a half years, you know, I love Chancellor Merkel.
I think the world of her, my one of my best colleagues, as
National Security advisor was Christoph voice, confront
Germany, we were extremely well together, but, you know, Germany
has to step up at this stage, right?
I mean, I think they may be on the cusp of doing it, I hope so
because I think they're seeing how aggressive China's been, and
they're also seeing with the Seeing of navalny hooten's, may
not political adversary with this novichok nerve agent and
then it him Landing in Germany for medical care.
I mean okay I think more evidence do you need.
So I think what Germany could really do a step up on defense
spending right? They spend all you like one
percent of their GDP and we had this European deterrence
initiative where we're spending about nine billion dollars a
year. More defense wise to rotate our
forces to Germany. Hey, that's like 33% of play
chirping. He's the best.
But yeah, but step it up, you know?
And the Is, as you mentioned North stream to, you know, the
gas pipeline. I think it's a no-brainer.
Your thing is, there's a good sourcing of that gas.
Now certainly through Ukraine, which could be disadvantaged if
that pipeline, was shut down. But also now, the u.s. is a big
exporter, could be a huge exporter of liquid natural gas,
which by the way is great for the environment relative to
other fossil fuels bridge to get the Renewables Germany in the
energy sector men that they made a mistake, right?
It made a mistake, they said, okay?
And where do you go to 100% Renewables?
And then it So we're not gonna do any nuclear.
Well I mean you can't do that. That's not going to work right
back in a few weeks on me. So this is one of the reasons
why they're there on a path to becoming overly dependent on
Russia and the bad part is you know, Russia will use that
energy to course, Germany, of course, got ya doing that
already, you know internationally.
So you're making a really important Point toward, I think
that it's time now. Really, this is why the subtitle
of the book is here. The fight to defend the Free
World. Okay, so hey, free world.
Yeah, let's work together. Let's work together on these
problems. Yeah.
It's Seems like in so many ways and the United States also has
been doing this to a certain extent.
So I don't mean to pick on Germany.
I've got family there, I used to live there as well.
I love the place that's why I worry about it.
I also worry about Russia because I think the people are
amazing and I think you mentioned this in the book, we
need more immigration from Russia.
We need more immigration, from China, not only because we can
force a brain drain on those countries, but because we who
doesn't want the best people, some of the best people in the
world to come and live in the United States and work in the
United States. I always like to highlight
these. Because inevitably, when I do
this, I get emails from Germany, Russia, China there.
Like, hey man, why you such a jerk, why don't why do you hate
us? And it's not, no.
I want the people to live in a society where they don't get put
in the equivalent of a gulag because they sneezed in the
wrong direction and their family has upward Mobility, because
it's not just a crony based corrupt economy, where only
friends of Vladimir and his buddies can get jobs.
We want that to change right? You know, Jordan wants a great
example and I use this in the book as well as is your when
chairman Square massacre happened in 1989 President,
George HW, Bush said, hey if you're a Chinese students
studying United States, you get a green card you can speaker and
you know, tens of thousands of Chinese students took him up on
it. And, you know, there's some of
our most productive greatest citizens these days, right?
So I mean, what if we were to say, hey if you are a Chinese
employee of an American company in China and you and your family
are subjected to the coercion of the party from the United States
will give you a special benefit parole Visa.
I mean I think that turns the tables and that's always been
our strength, right? I mean think about the great
minds that fled the Holocaust and came to the United States.
Yeah, I mean and who really were the foundation?
Many of them for the technological advantages.
We've enjoyed in the 20th century.
There are so many stories of where country of immigrants.
Yeah. And you when you hear the
discourse on immigration, everybody's always talking about
like who we don't want it, what are we talking about?
Like who we do want, right? I mean, do you buy into
individual freedom to our democratic form of government?
Are you a tolerant person? You know, tell Of religion and
sexual orientation. I mean, do you respect others,
right? Do you believe in rule of law?
Do you believe that if you work hard in our free market economic
system, you can make a better life for you and your children
and grandchildren. Hey, if the answer to those
questions are, yes, you'll come on, you know, join us.
This is the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest General HR
McMaster, we'll be right back. Thank you for listening and
supporting the show, your support of our advertisers keeps
us going to learn more More and get links to all the great
discounts you've just heard. So you can check out those
amazing sponsors for yourself. Visit, Jordan, Harbinger.com
deals and don't forget the worksheet for today's episode,
that link is in the show notes as well at Jordan Harbinger.com
podcast. And now, for the conclusion of
our episode, with General HR McMaster Speaking of Education,
it seems like education as our best defense against things like
manipulation especially online, which we're dealing with right
now. Going back to what you were
talking about with Russia and Vladimir Putin, these
disinformation campaigns. Does the military ever come out
and say hey if we didn't have so many uneducated Knuckleheads, we
might be better able to defend ourselves because it seems like
y'all are being quiet over there.
Like we need to what's going on. We this is obviously a huge
problem and people go oh I'd occasionally you know we need to
read up on this. It's more than that.
Like we really need a national effort to improve our education
system. I went to a public school as a
kid and it was a good one and I remember thinking this is pretty
bad, you know. And that was in the 80s and 90s.
Now it's worse and it's the majority of our education seems
like is in the hands of parents especially with the covid thing
in the homeschooling. I got lawyers friends over here
teaching fractions in the leg held me.
What are we doing? We have to demand real reform,
right? And my mom taught for over 30
years in Inner City, Philadelphia was just an amazing
educator. You and sensitize me to and from
early age on how its most important factor in determining
when it starts going to be successful, if your family is
well obviously sure, but I think it's time to really demand real
reforms, you know, and if teachers unions are an obstacle,
we've got to tell them. Hey, you can't construct perform
anymore. Unions.
Have a purpose. But some of these unions have
gone beyond their purpose because their Defenders of
mediocrity, their Defenders of, really the soft bigotry of low
expectations. Now, I think school choice is a
way out of this. Potentially, we need it.
Combinations of policy remedies and we need to demand it.
This is why I hope that, you know, there is a period of
introspection that follows, these triple crises of the
pandemic, the recession, the divisions in our society, laid
bare by the horrible, murder of George Floyd and and then the
anger over in equality of treatment, and inequality of
opportunity in our country. Okay, let's roll up our sleeves
and do something about it and have meaningful discussions
based on facts, real facts, you know, instead of defund, the
police come on now, is that good V in terms of, Security in our
cities. And we're seeing me right now,
the lunacy of that now, and how it's actually inflicting more
suffering on our most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.
Right? So what we need and I this is
the argument make on climate change as well and we don't have
any more time for non Solutions, we need real solutions for these
problems. Do you think climate change is a
huge threat. I know the book mentions this as
well, and you talked about it on 60 Minutes.
I think a lot of people go, well, if you think, climate
change is such a big deal, why leave the The cords and you made
an interesting point on that and I would love for you to take us
through that because when we left the Paris Accords I thought
okay officially we just don't care anymore but you have a good
counter point. Well, Jordan, I mean, I already
first to stay in it. I just see the downside, you
know, but of course, there are those who argue.
Hey, listen, these goals are that we signed up to that.
Could put us at a significant disadvantage but what really,
when I revised my assessment of it was really after the fact
after we were out of thought you know what, it may be a good
thing that we left because the Paris Accord was giving us a
false sense of security climate. Change is a problem.
It is man-made and we can do something about it, but the
Paris Accord is not the right thing, because it gives the
biggest polluters in the world. The ability to continue to
poison the Earth. And what we need is, we need
solutions to this problem that are economically feasible
globally, including in developing economies.
And this is where I'm really excited about some of the new
technologies. Renewables are going to be much
more affordable but look at what happened in United States.
We reduced our carbon emissions. Way Beyond what everybody
thought was possible. And it happened by really an
unanticipated development called fracking, which gave then us
access to a vast amount of natural gas drove the price of
natural gas down and then incentivised to transition out
of coal to natural gas. That's what did it.
So that's the kind of change. We need internationally other
promising technologies that I cover in the book or you know,
the Next Generation nuclear power for example, but there are
people who say our climate change is really bad, but I
don't like nuclear and we have to Go immediately off of fossil
fuels. Well, you know what economic
impact is that going to have? We're going to be running on
hamster wheels to keep the lights on exact.
So it gets to this point of view a no more non Solutions.
Let's have real solutions. Yeah, when the consequences of
inaction are left to Future Generations, in action will rule
the day. And I can't remember if you said
something like that in the book, or if it just came to me in an
inspiration, but it makes sense. I mean, if we're just sort of
like praying, that gen Z, figures this out, what are we
going to do? We're going to sit here and burn
coal and we owe it to ourselves real too.
Future generations to get to work on it but get to work with
as I mention in a realistic way. And and really whatever we come
up with its as to be adopted in China and India and across
developing economies in Africa and Beyond you know, or else
it's not going to solve the problem because obviously carbon
emissions they don't respect country's borders.
The carbon Cloud over La has its origins in China, right?
And so we have to recognize that my family in Germany.
Sent me a photo of a red sunrise and I said, oh that's what it
looks like out. Here are a couple weeks ago and
he said yeah. It's the smoke from Silicon
Valley blowing over on the jet stream and that's from a forest
fire. Imagine something that lasts 20
years instead of two weeks. I mean it's of course it's going
to blow everywhere. We saw that was Chernobyl, I
think that was People's First sort of experience of.
Wait you mean the Soviet Union can make a big Bungalow and it
can end up in Germany and Poland.
Finland like, oh, maybe we should pay attention, maybe we
need to work together on this. When do you think we're going to
see conflict over things like water and food security that has
to be right around the corner? Well it's and it's already
happening someplace. Is right in and I used the
example of South Asia and India in particular and I think what's
important about these problems is they're interconnected,
right? So you have interconnected
problems of energy environments and is also climate change
associated with that, then food security, water, security, and
health security, right? These are all interconnected and
what happens? I think, oftentimes is we say,
okay, let's solve like one of those press, right?
And when you do that, you create a ripple effect that makes other
problems worse than They were right?
So for example, if food security is an issue and you just divert
water into agriculture, then you create a crisis in potable
water, right for your population.
I wish I could go on with examples, but it's key to look
at these systemically. And, and I think, you know, it's
in all of our interest India has to succeed, right?
I mean, you know, India is a big country with a lot of people,
right? If there's a failure in India,
it's going to affect all of us. And, and India is a democracy
and works, and kind of a, you know, a kind of a strange way,
but it works. And I think that we ought to
work together with India, as really, an example, maybe that
could be then adopted more broadly, hopefully by China,
especially associated with these interconnected problems.
A lot of people think that action by the United States
creates Islamic extremism hostile.
Russia hostile, North Korea, and antagonist, China Oliver Stone
made this argument on the show. Hey, if we just mind our own
business, these people have better things to do than bother
us. They're just trying to handle
their own business. I don't buy that for a second,
but can You set us straight on this because I, you're in a
better place to say whether or not action by the United States,
is creating these enemies, or if they were there before, what's
your just think about how arrogant that is, right?
So it's just like, this is like, you know, this is an
interpretation, you know, that is a historical, but it's also
profoundly arrogant because, you know what we're saying is, hey
others, they have no aspirations of their own.
The only react to What We Ready, do, right?
They have no authorship over the future and so I it's crazy.
We didn't cause Jihad Terrorism. We didn't cause the Iranian
Revolution, and therefore, the 40-year long proxy war against
us. You often hear this on Russia.
You know, that we were just so me to rush in the not know, we
weren't, but we did everything. We could at the time to help
Russia. Make that transition, from the,
Soviet Union to a representative government and free market
economic system. That didn't work, right?
Just didn't work. And in China you hear the same
argument to, you know, gosh if the Trump ministration wasn't so
mean then try to wouldn't be much better and play by the
rules really house. At working out with covid-19,
with wolf Warrior diplomacy with bludgeoning Indian soldiers to
death on the Himalayan. Frontier with unprecedented
cyber attacks across all sectors against Australia.
You know with a land, grab in the South China Sea with
repressing freedom, in Hong Kong with threatening, Taiwan is
United States, making them do that.
I don't think so. Are we making him wage a
campaign of cultural genocide? And shinjang, I don't think so.
So I think that it's a profoundly, arrogant
interpretation and it's typically is used To justify
retrenchment or withdraw from these complex problems overseas.
But, you know, as we know with covid-19, it's much better to
deal with what the problem is over there.
You know, abroad before it gets to our Shores.
Because then coping with it is usually at a much higher cost
and I think the pandemics an analogy for that or an example
of that and shows 911, what do you think about folks who say
bring all the troops home? Why don't we just stay out of
everything else and become isolationist like America was
before Pearl Harbor? And WWII because there are a lot
of people that actually say things like that.
Usually people that have friends and family in the surface.
So I understand it, they want their family and friends out of
Harm's Way. I'm not blaming those people but
it is based on a flawed assumption that we can just like
kind of unplug everything. And then it's not our problem
anymore. Well, you know, and I don't
blame people who have this thought, you know, because of
the frustrations, right associated with the
unanticipated length, and difficulty of the cost of the
wars in Afghanistan Iraq. And and what the American people
haven't heard from leaders, Enough is, hey, what's at stake,
right? Why should they care?
What's important about this conflict?
And them and then what is the strategy, right?
What are we doing? Not just militarily but
diplomatically and informationally and economically
and so forth to achieve an outcome consistent with our
security and our interest at an acceptable cost, right?
That's what the American people deserve to hear.
And I think they've only heard that on occasion in the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Oftentimes, when we Have had
sound strategies in place. I think like The Surge and the
aftermath of the surgeon, really?
I think a win in Iraq. A very fragile and reversible
win in Iraq and followed sadly by the complete withdrawal.
December 2011. And then, I think we had it in
Afghanistan with President Trump and his August 2017 speech on
South Asia, strategy. That again, was abandoned.
Prematurely it's tough for me to see it.
I think the stakes are high in these conflicts but the American
people deserve better in terms of an explanation of.
Okay, so what and then what's the strategy, why?
Is the United States seemingly behind on cyber warfare?
Is it a matter of funding? Or are we actually really great
at it? But it's not talked about as
much because we don't get caught where do we stand with this?
Because it seems very clear that this is where China and Russia
are playing right now and probably in the future since
they can't really come bat us militarily or physically what is
it? What's the term kinetic Warfare?
They're just not up to Snuff they don't have carriers and
force projection like we do are we behind on that or what we're
head on it we're the best in the world that's a relief but
there's no reason to be complacent right?
Because If you have an adversary who's determined right to
disrupts, Who attack, you know, we have a big attack surface.
You know, it's his you can't shoot down every arrow that's
coming. In your system for a Cyber
attack whether it's for the purpose of Espionage or
criminality or taking down critical infrastructure.
So the critical part of this is a good offense is key.
Part of a good defensive. I think we've realized that made
some adaptations that are important but then also we have
to be conscious of the fact that we're up against a very capable
State actors, you know, Russia China.
Actually a ranch getting better. North Korea is getting better.
They all have different, like, kind of competitive advantages
with each other, right? You're really good at
cyber-enabled information Warfare and a bunch of other
offensive cyber capabilities. China is really, really good at
Cyber Espionage and they're getting better and other forms
of disinformation and political subversion through cyberspace.
Your North Korea is really good at Cyber criminality.
That's a big moneymaker for them and they're also good at
retribution attacks against like, Sony remember, On the
rank. And then Iran has been good at
destructive attacks, like against Saudi aramco, they did a
Cyber attack, they did that drone attack recently.
But he before they think of Cyber attack on Saudi aramco and
they attacked our financial system that denied service for a
period of time which impel dusting make our defenses
better. This is years ago.
So there we have to be cognizant of the range of State actors and
how they're evolving. And this is a contest.
I mean, during this is going on every day, every day, we have
Americans in this fight every day, And we have to be cognizant
of non-state actors now to we're trying to get these capabilities
and what's critical about that as you know you can deter a
nation-state because you can hold something of value to them
at risk, right? But the non-state actor, it's
harder to do that and so I think that this is a big element of
what I emphasizing the book is the need for us to really
maintain our Edge on this. But then also from a defensive
perspective, you know, we need systems that can degrade
gracefully, there aren't vulnerable to catastrophic
failure and we held that in from the beginning, right?
Right. I mean, if we're, if we're
building sensitive technology with components from China, I
mean, that's probably really stupid to do at this point,
right? And so, we have vulnerabilities
associated with what people think I software and hackings.
Hey, but their hard work, vulnerabilities to, there are
all sorts of vulnerabilities. And what these adversaries do is
they look at your whole organization, they look at your
whole person, your household and they're just looking for points
of Entry there like a burglar looking for the open window, how
do I get in? So we have to be much more
security conscious than we've ever.
How do the United States? Competitors view us right now.
In general, do they see us as weak?
I mean, it seems like they do, but obviously, you're the
expert, they'll tell you, Jordan.
I think that she is just weak right now and I think they see
what's going on in our country the divisiveness, right?
The the fact that were driven apart from each other based on
these divisions in our society. But what social media is doing
to a standstill by driving us apart with these algorithms to
show you just more and more extreme information based on
your credit elections. The fact that you know if your
of one political Suasion. You watch one TV network and
somebody of a different political persuasion watches a
different one, right? And so you're creating two
different realities instead of really, at least some kind of
basis, right? For a common understanding, and
civil conversations across the political Spectrum.
We're doing this to ourselves toward, we got to stop, you
know, we got to stop it and I think everybody has a role,
right? We got to come together with in
our neighborhoods within our communities.
I think it's possible. It should be possible to
celebrate our democracy. To celebrate that.
Hey, we have a say in how we're That we are committed to those
ideals that are in the Declaration of Independence that
are in our Constitution. And we can still we can go that
far, but then we can recognize it.
We're imperfect, right? This is always been a journey
for us after the revolution. We didn't resolve the greatest
contradiction in our constitution until almost 100
years later with the our most destructive war in history that
resulted in the emancipation of four million slaves.
Hey, that's good. You know, put that in the
positive. Um you know but then you have
the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow in the South, okay?
Put that in the negative column. Then you have a long struggle
for civil rights. Do you have women's suffrage?
Well, imagine that, you know, women can vote and everything
that didn't comments book, you probably the early 20th century.
We have the Civil Rights Movement.
You have the dismantling of the legal basis for Jim Crow in the
60s, but hey, we're not high five and yet, right?
We still have more work to do. So let's think about let's work
together to really to make our Public better every day and
there are some who don't want to do that.
They think that. Hey, you can't even empathize.
You're even allowed to empathize with some people anymore and
it's a real tragedy. It's a real tragedy.
Well in closing I want to just get this out of the way because
I'm sure a lot of people are waiting for it and they're going
to be disappointed. I was pleasantly surprised.
You didn't write a book that talked much at all about Donald
Trump. It was just not there.
It was a book that was about a world in disarray, what we're
doing about it. That would direction we need to
go, I know this was obviously a conscious decision.
And your publisher was probably really bummed that you didn't
throw in any drama. I'm glad you did because
otherwise we wouldn't have been able to have this conversation
on the show because I typically avoid that stuff.
But why did you choose that? You probably could have cashed
out a nice fat check. Had you gone the other
direction? Yeah, Jordan up.
Yeah. Begin with the prep for say,
this is the book that nobody wanted me to write, you know,
and I really felt like it wouldn't be useful.
I want to make a contribution to bring Americans together to help
us cope with our most crucial challenges.
Right? There are plenty of tell-alls
out there. There are plenty.
Palace Intrigue books out there and I hope that this book will
be more substantive. That'll bring people together
across the political Spectrum to have meaningful discussions.
Look how we can when we had today, you know, and then and
then use that as a basis for working together to overcome
these challenges to take advantage of opportunities and
just build you a better future for generations to come.
And then, the other part about this tortoise, I started the art
for 34 years. I've been studiously a
political, right? I don't want to get drug down
into vitriolic partisan. Hicks now, right?
And so, I hope that the book will transcend that for people
who helped get us on mired from that.
And then the other aspect of this is, you know, I was in a
position of privilege there. You know what's unique about the
National Security advisor, position is you're the only
person with in the foreign policy establishment, who has
the president as his or her only client, right?
If during a present his tenure and National Security advisor,
die rights until all like, what future presence could ever trust
her National Security. And by the way, I was in uniform
at the time just going to trust a senior military officer.
So I think it would have been irresponsible for me to write,
you know, kind of a tell-all or Palace entry and this was more
gratifying for me. I worked with a great team of
research systems here at Stanford.
It was like a it was part of myself education as well.
You know, I mean I really am grateful for the opportunity of
done it. I hope that your listeners judge
it to have been worthwhile and I really appreciate the
opportunity to be with you. Yeah, this has been excellent in
the book. Don't think you got the gist of
the book listening to this. It goes into Iran.
China Russia, North Korea. Afghanistan Iraq.
Am I forgetting anything? There's probably more.
Well, except that it's just super readable and fun.
Yeah, I know. He's just depressing topics,
man. But what I want to say is a it
is a message of positive message, right?
We can emerge from these challenges covid, we can emerge
stronger and so Jordan, thank you so much for the privilege of
being with you. Yeah, this was really excellent.
I really appreciate your time. Well, I appreciate it.
Thanks for the opportunity have really a full conversation on
it. Man.
But I felt like we would connect Max.
I just I like the pace of the conversation.
I mean I really enjoyed it or thanks a lot.
Hopefully we can continue the conversation at some point and
get together in person. Sometime my pleasure have a
great week we'll talk soon. Take care.
Bye. I've got some thoughts on this
one, but before I get into that, here's a quick preview of my
two-parter with Eric Aude. This is one of the craziest
stories I've ever heard on this show.
He was tricked into unknowingly smuggling opium into Pakistan
ends up in a prison. He's a stuntman and he used a
lot of his skills to survive against the police and other
inmates. This story is just bananas.
Here's a quick bite from that one.
Pakistan was just one of many bad things have happened to me
in my life. I've had so many things happen
and I just learned to get over it.
You know, you get knocked down six times, you get up seven and
that's the only way I've ever known how to live.
When I got out of the cab with the suitcases to leave Pakistan,
the guy who was there as like next time you come back, we'll
show you around. Will hook you up with some
girls. You have a great time and I'm
humoring this guy. I'm like yeah, sure.
Next time I come back. I know for a fact I'm never
going back to Pakistan. Country sucks that in country
sucks and I'm good at finding like good things that have
everywhere. So it's early in the morning and
I go into International departures and long line curve
around the corner waiting in line and the line goes all the
way up, this wall to where there's Customs tables.
And when the Customs officer sees me in flag, makes them
about six inches taller than everyone and I get brought to
another room. Finally, the guy who asked me if
there is narcotics, and my suitcase comes in, he's holding
these two sandwiches filled things.
And his exact words to me as what does this.
And I said, you know what it is. He says this is all film.
So why are you showing me this? Is it came out of your suitcase?
Felt like such a fucking idiot. Yeah, because I thought that the
DEA was going to hook me up, you know, because they're going to
see that I'm innocent. I truly thought those guys are
going to be there to help me now.
It kind of wasn't guilty so that this shit doesn't happen.
Innocent people, three years of my life for a crime, I didn't
know. I was being used to commit to
hear the rest of one of the most harrowing stories I've ever
heard in my time doing this podcast.
Check out episode 1 for 7 with Eric Aude here on the Jordan
Harbinger show. What a fascinating show?
Fascinating guy, he's huge on reading.
He actually said that he packed more books than clothes when
prepping for his job as the National Security advisor.
They actually tried to get him to resign by offering him a
fourth star. He ended up getting fired by
tweet, that's the world we live in these days by the way, HR
McMaster is that not an awesome name for a general?
I think it's up there with Admiral mcraven.
As far as military names go, it really is not a ton of positive
news out of this one. I mean, we discussed a little
bit about There's but the terrorists now are stronger than
they were on September 10 2001 Al Qaeda Isis there.
An order of magnitude more capable than previous iterations
of terrorists. They really have, unfortunately,
regrouped gotten their stuff together and as we've seen from
the news, they're just not slowing down.
I mean, it looks like we're taking care of them but they're
regrouping places like Pakistan Afghanistan.
I mean, this is a war that is not going to be one anytime
soon. And in America, the will to win
a war or to go to war is Is only as good as the information that
the public receives and our population, seems less informed
and ironically, even less educated than ever before.
Even though we have internet in a ton of information were less
educated than a, then I can certainly remember this plus
outside disinformation. It just seems like a recipe for
disaster to me, you know, we have narcissistic
interpretations of History, which is often worse than
complete ignorance of history. When it comes to dealing with
places like Iran and Iraq, and the Middle East and Iran uses
this, Like, with the United States and Israel to divert from
their own corrupt, looting, and their oppression of their own
country. I worry about every country
doing that to their own people, to be honest, this book was
super engaging. If you're interested in, what's
going on in Iran, Iraq, Syria Afghanistan, North Korea, China.
If you're interested in world affairs, and global conflict,
like me, you're gonna dig this book.
It is a huge book, but it's a great read.
So big thanks to General HR McMaster, the book is called
Battlegrounds. We will link it in the show
notes as we always do and if you buy it, Please use the links in
the show notes that helps support the show every little
thing adds up there. The worksheets for this episode,
are in the show notes. The transcripts of this episode
are in the show notes. And there's a video of this
interview on our YouTube channel at Jordan.
Harbinger.com YouTube, I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter
and Instagram, you can also hit me there on LinkedIn.
I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage
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This is our networking course, it's a free course.
It's at Jordan Harbinger.com. / course, Dig that well before you
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They've contributed to the course in some way, please come
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This shows created an association with podcast one.
My amazing team includes Jen Harbinger.
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