WEBVTT 1 00:00:30.039 --> 00:00:32.920 Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander, an 2 00:00:32.920 --> 00:00:36.240 Eagle one from Eagle Speak at Seer Shore. You're home 3 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:39.600 for a discussion of national security issues and all things maritime, 4 00:00:40.679 --> 00:00:44.520 and welcome board everybody to another edition of mid Rats. 5 00:00:44.560 --> 00:00:46.880 We're glad to have you on board here, and if 6 00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:49.240 you are with us live, I'd like to extend an 7 00:00:49.240 --> 00:00:52.799 invitation for you to scroll over and find the chat room. 8 00:00:52.840 --> 00:00:55.000 You could hop in there and during the course of 9 00:00:55.039 --> 00:00:57.520 the show, if you have some observations you want to share, 10 00:00:57.799 --> 00:00:59.640 or if there's a question you would like for us 11 00:00:59.679 --> 00:01:01.920 to direct to our guests, that's a great place to 12 00:01:01.960 --> 00:01:04.879 put it. We always appreciate your input and feel free 13 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:06.840 to do that. You're more than welcome to If you 14 00:01:06.879 --> 00:01:10.560 don't already, I'll do my usual alter call that go 15 00:01:10.599 --> 00:01:14.439 ahead and find mid Rats on iTunes, Spreaker, Spotify, wherever 16 00:01:14.439 --> 00:01:16.640 you get your podcasts, and if you don't already, go 17 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:19.599 ahead find us and subscribe. It's free, and that way 18 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:21.400 we will be available for you if you can't make 19 00:01:21.439 --> 00:01:23.959 it live for a time that's more convenient to what 20 00:01:24.079 --> 00:01:27.079 you want to do. And today our discussion we're going 21 00:01:27.159 --> 00:01:31.480 to talk about change. Change is always good and reform 22 00:01:31.799 --> 00:01:35.680 is always good. And at the beginning of every administration 23 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:38.959 there is a window and it can be short or 24 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:41.319 it can be long, but it's usually to the short 25 00:01:41.400 --> 00:01:44.040 side where you can set the tone and start to 26 00:01:44.120 --> 00:01:47.200 reform things in year one and then spend the next 27 00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:50.640 few years trying to operationalize it. It Congress on board, 28 00:01:50.879 --> 00:01:54.079 and we're at that point here a couple of months 29 00:01:54.079 --> 00:01:57.359 into the Trump administration, and when we look at the Pentagon, 30 00:01:57.599 --> 00:02:00.200 there's lots of options, lots of people with ideas. Is 31 00:02:00.439 --> 00:02:03.920 on some things that the new administration should look at 32 00:02:03.959 --> 00:02:06.840 on reforming in today's guest is the author of a 33 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:09.039 recent article and you can find a link to it 34 00:02:09.080 --> 00:02:12.840 on the show page titled real military Reform? Will Pete 35 00:02:12.919 --> 00:02:16.919 Hegseth be able to reverse our military decline? And our 36 00:02:16.919 --> 00:02:20.719 guest is Gary Anderson, Colonel the United States Marine Corps retired. 37 00:02:21.159 --> 00:02:23.919 He was the chief of Staff at the Marine Corps 38 00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:26.800 War Fighting Lab and he also served as a special 39 00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:30.639 advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and adjunct professor 40 00:02:30.680 --> 00:02:34.360 at George Washington University. Gary, Welcome to Interraps. 41 00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:36.280 Good to be here, thank you, great. 42 00:02:36.039 --> 00:02:38.719 To have you on board, Gary, and to get things 43 00:02:38.840 --> 00:02:43.800 rolling here. The opening sentence to your article had me 44 00:02:43.919 --> 00:02:47.159 pondering a bit. It's America's military has been a dress 45 00:02:47.240 --> 00:02:51.159 for some time. And I had realized that if you 46 00:02:51.280 --> 00:02:54.520 measured the length of time that the US fought in 47 00:02:54.719 --> 00:02:57.479 World War Two, from Pearl Harbor to VJ Day, that 48 00:02:57.599 --> 00:03:00.840 was oney three and forty seven days. And I've always 49 00:03:00.840 --> 00:03:03.000 thought the link that we had fought World War two 50 00:03:03.199 --> 00:03:05.680 is useful in a couple of ways, sometimes humors to 51 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:09.120 measure how we're being able to do things, whether you're 52 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:11.960 talking about programs or personnel changes or things like that. 53 00:03:12.039 --> 00:03:14.280 So one thousand, three hundred and forty seven days for 54 00:03:14.319 --> 00:03:16.520 the US to fight World War two, And when you 55 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:21.319 look at the most recent significant inflection point in national security, 56 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:24.319 that was the fall of Kabul, which you can measure 57 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:27.199 as the thirtieth of August of twenty twenty one, that 58 00:03:27.319 --> 00:03:30.039 was one thousand, three hundred and thirty six days ago, 59 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:32.319 ninety nine point one three percent of the time it 60 00:03:32.360 --> 00:03:37.080 took for US to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. 61 00:03:37.439 --> 00:03:40.439 And I know you're probably when you're saying some time 62 00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:45.199 it's a little longer than that, But time flies, and 63 00:03:45.439 --> 00:03:49.319 there's been a lot of problem appreciation, uh, consuming that time. 64 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:51.800 So when you when you talk about that sometime, what 65 00:03:51.960 --> 00:03:55.000 timeframe are you looking at and what direction do you 66 00:03:55.039 --> 00:03:56.960 see that drift that concerns you the most. 67 00:03:57.080 --> 00:04:00.080 Yeah, that's it's a good question. But let me go 68 00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:02.680 back to statement you made at the beginning of the 69 00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:08.280 broadcast that military reform, that reform is always good. I'd 70 00:04:08.319 --> 00:04:11.599 kind of take exception to that because it takes imaginal 71 00:04:11.759 --> 00:04:15.520 line and the concept that the French developed was radical 72 00:04:15.639 --> 00:04:19.439 military reform, and that didn't work out very well for 73 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:23.279 him there. I can you know, cite other examples of 74 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:28.439 failed reforms, and that goes back to the original, you know, 75 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:31.800 to the question of since the fall of Kabul, you 76 00:04:31.839 --> 00:04:35.079 would think that we would have taken a step back 77 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:38.399 and said we're doing something wrong here, something something went 78 00:04:38.480 --> 00:04:42.639 badly wrong about how we were dealing with Afghanistan and 79 00:04:43.199 --> 00:04:47.120 perhaps the world in general. I personally think that a 80 00:04:47.160 --> 00:04:50.040 lot of it goes back over thirty years to the 81 00:04:50.199 --> 00:04:55.480 Goldwater Nichols quote military reforms unquote, that we're supposed to 82 00:04:55.639 --> 00:04:59.480 make us a lot better. I think we have been suffering. 83 00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:02.839 It took a while for us to really feel the 84 00:05:02.920 --> 00:05:08.240 unintended consequences of the Goldwater Nichols Reform. But I think 85 00:05:08.439 --> 00:05:10.759 a lot of that has to do with what the 86 00:05:10.839 --> 00:05:16.680 unintended consequences of that particular that particular piece of legislation, 87 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:21.480 and along with that the Skelton Military Education reforms that 88 00:05:21.519 --> 00:05:23.759 we kind of went hand in hand with it. So 89 00:05:24.120 --> 00:05:27.199 this thing, in my view that the rot goes back 90 00:05:27.240 --> 00:05:30.199 a long way. We're just starting to see the real 91 00:05:30.560 --> 00:05:31.319 results of it. 92 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:35.079 Well, let's I have a question that first, what is 93 00:05:35.120 --> 00:05:37.360 the Marine Corps war Fighting Lab and what does it do? 94 00:05:37.639 --> 00:05:40.360 And Yeah, now you know, I've been far away from 95 00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:44.759 the Marine Corps war Fighting Lab for a number of 96 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:48.959 years now. I retired back in twenty two thousand and 97 00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:52.160 then I spent a little time working for the Lab 98 00:05:52.199 --> 00:05:57.720 as the director of the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, 99 00:05:57.800 --> 00:06:00.879 And so I haven't been associated with with the Lab 100 00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:05.040 for quite some time. But it was originally designed to 101 00:06:05.959 --> 00:06:09.879 we have began back in the mid nineties a little 102 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:12.759 thing we call the Experimental Unit that we grew out 103 00:06:12.759 --> 00:06:16.800 of our war Marine Corps Wargaming Center, which I was 104 00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:19.800 the director of, and was really designed to take a 105 00:06:19.839 --> 00:06:25.839 look at the future and emerging opportunity, emerging concepts and 106 00:06:25.879 --> 00:06:28.279 so forth, and see if we could integrate those into 107 00:06:28.279 --> 00:06:31.120 the Marine Corps. It started out very small, with about 108 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:35.879 fifteen people, but when General Charles Krulak took over his 109 00:06:35.959 --> 00:06:39.800 comment doant on the Marine Corps, he expanded the concept 110 00:06:40.040 --> 00:06:46.839 into a bunch larger, much more reasonably funded organization. Robustly 111 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:56.279 Fundedzation I should say, grew to several hundred people, and 112 00:06:54.399 --> 00:07:00.160 it was designed to do exactly that, to try to 113 00:07:00.199 --> 00:07:02.040 try to look into the future and see if we 114 00:07:02.079 --> 00:07:06.839 could take some of these emerging technologies, emerging concepts and 115 00:07:06.879 --> 00:07:13.839 integrate them into the Marine Corps. Marine Corps operating approach. 116 00:07:14.839 --> 00:07:21.079 One of our first, very first successes was General Tony Zen. 117 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:30.399 He took a group of unit of mostly Marines to 118 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:35.160 evacuate the UN mission in Somalia when thing started to 119 00:07:35.199 --> 00:07:38.680 go really bad in nineteen ninety five, and having noticed 120 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:41.519 that we were dealing with if you've ever seen that 121 00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:47.639 movie Blackhawk Down, were civilians and are masked are masked 122 00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:51.360 by masking enemy snipers and things like that to try 123 00:07:51.399 --> 00:07:54.279 to keep the to try to keep civilians away from 124 00:07:54.560 --> 00:07:58.160 our forces with non lethal force. We had some emerging 125 00:07:58.240 --> 00:08:01.160 technologies that we looked at and he was able to 126 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:03.839 use them and in a number of ways, a number 127 00:08:03.879 --> 00:08:07.720 of innovative ways to help the operation go. And uh, 128 00:08:07.839 --> 00:08:10.079 those are the kinds, those are the kinds of things 129 00:08:10.079 --> 00:08:12.279 that we were looking at, things that maybe we could 130 00:08:12.519 --> 00:08:15.279 pull off the shelf very quickly in an emergency, but 131 00:08:15.439 --> 00:08:18.920 also to look long range down the pike and see 132 00:08:18.920 --> 00:08:21.279 if we could do some some good things with the 133 00:08:21.279 --> 00:08:25.240 Marine Corps from a standpoint just not just a technology, 134 00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:27.959 but some emerging concepts as well. 135 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:28.759 Yeah. 136 00:08:28.759 --> 00:08:31.839 Well, as in your in your article that we've been 137 00:08:31.839 --> 00:08:33.960 talking about here a little bit you you coul do 138 00:08:33.960 --> 00:08:36.039 do it look downrange. You see a lot of things 139 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:38.600 that have changed in the in the Marine Corps and 140 00:08:38.600 --> 00:08:40.960 the Navy that you've kind of taken to task. Talk 141 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:43.559 a little bit about about your what you see as 142 00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:46.279 things that need to be reformed or re reformed or 143 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:49.080 re regenerated from the way things used to be or 144 00:08:49.120 --> 00:08:51.679 where where the future should be should be driving it. 145 00:08:51.799 --> 00:08:55.480 Yeah, there were I think, uh, if I remember properly, 146 00:08:55.600 --> 00:08:59.559 there were a number of of things that I suggested. 147 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:03.000 I I think personally that the Marine Corps went off 148 00:09:03.039 --> 00:09:07.759 in the wrong direction in twenty eighteen with a concept 149 00:09:07.759 --> 00:09:10.720 that they call force design, and I think that was 150 00:09:10.759 --> 00:09:13.639 a very dangerous thing, and I think it's hurt the core. 151 00:09:13.879 --> 00:09:16.240 I think the second thing I was talking about, if 152 00:09:16.279 --> 00:09:21.720 I remember properly, was the need to get the Navy 153 00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:25.200 squared away as far as both of its shipbuilding and 154 00:09:25.320 --> 00:09:30.720 its and its maintenance procedures and so forth. I think 155 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:34.360 we've gotten really off course with that, and I think 156 00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:37.399 it's hurting us from a standpoint of readiness, both of 157 00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:40.440 the Navy and the Marine Corps. And I am a 158 00:09:40.480 --> 00:09:46.399 little I am concerned with the overall state of the 159 00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:52.559 military education and the situation with the ability to promote 160 00:09:52.679 --> 00:09:58.080 war fighting competent officers up to general officer flag officer rank. 161 00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:00.360 And I think I go back to the go Water 162 00:10:00.440 --> 00:10:03.159 Nichols thing. I think that that has been, you know, 163 00:10:03.240 --> 00:10:05.720 a major thing that got us soft. Course. Those are 164 00:10:05.720 --> 00:10:08.039 the kinds of things I was talking about the article. 165 00:10:08.200 --> 00:10:10.399 It's funny the I can almost see my co host 166 00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:13.159 creating right now is the one of the trigger phrases 167 00:10:13.159 --> 00:10:15.519 for me, at least for a long time, has been 168 00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:19.720 Goldwater Nickels. And we're coming up on the fifth anniversary 169 00:10:19.759 --> 00:10:23.519 of Goldwater Nickels, and we've talked about it on a 170 00:10:23.559 --> 00:10:26.759 regular basis for over a decade here about the need 171 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:29.639 to reform if nothing else. When you look at the 172 00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:32.840 time from the was it forty seven or forty nine 173 00:10:32.879 --> 00:10:37.600 they did the big Pentagon Reform Act and then Goldwater 174 00:10:37.679 --> 00:10:40.399 Nichols came in. If you look at the timeframe, it's time. 175 00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:43.600 But when you talk to a lot of the leaders 176 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:49.240 in Congress that our knowledgeable system will, they'll nod their head. 177 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:52.080 But when you look to your left and right, it's 178 00:10:52.120 --> 00:10:55.960 hard to find a modern Goldwater are Nichols. It's willing 179 00:10:56.039 --> 00:10:59.279 to invest the time to make that change, but it's 180 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:02.320 critical because it was developed during the Cold War forty 181 00:11:02.399 --> 00:11:04.759 years ago. Somebody was asking for you just to ride 182 00:11:04.799 --> 00:11:08.039 on the back of a three x five card. You know, 183 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:10.759 some of the top areas you think should be looked 184 00:11:10.759 --> 00:11:16.320 at first to replacing Goldwater Nickels. What are those things 185 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:19.440 that you really think stand out that's getting in our 186 00:11:19.480 --> 00:11:25.360 way either intellectually or operationally. Having a more optimized total 187 00:11:25.399 --> 00:11:26.679 force than what we have right now. 188 00:11:26.759 --> 00:11:29.399 Yeah, I think there would be three bullets. Ticket punching 189 00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:34.200 and cruism. The bloat of staffs caused by this ticket 190 00:11:34.279 --> 00:11:38.720 punching cruism thing that the Goldwater Nichols did, And I 191 00:11:38.759 --> 00:11:43.320 think the other thing is a misunderstanding of what was 192 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:47.320 attempted and what actually occurred. I think those are the 193 00:11:47.399 --> 00:11:51.000 three things that stick out in my mind, and I 194 00:11:51.039 --> 00:11:55.120 think the first and most important is it encouraged crurism 195 00:11:55.159 --> 00:11:58.480 and ticket punching. Now, I mean, you know, expand on that. 196 00:11:58.679 --> 00:12:01.639 One of the things that go Water Nichols did to 197 00:12:01.720 --> 00:12:05.480 try to improve the quality of joint staffs because back 198 00:12:05.840 --> 00:12:10.600 then joint staffs were looked at, probably realistically as a 199 00:12:10.639 --> 00:12:14.519 dumping ground for mid grade to senior officers who didn't 200 00:12:14.519 --> 00:12:18.600 have a potential future in their various services. That may 201 00:12:18.679 --> 00:12:20.759 or may not have been true, but the quality of 202 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:25.519 the of the joint staffs was in question. So they 203 00:12:26.440 --> 00:12:31.960 made a decision to go ahead and make sure that 204 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:36.200 every mid grade officer who aspired general officer or flag 205 00:12:36.279 --> 00:12:39.919 officer rank spent at least three years if he was 206 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:45.159 selected to go to a to go to a joint staff, 207 00:12:45.200 --> 00:12:48.080 which most of them were actually quite small at the time, 208 00:12:48.440 --> 00:12:52.799 but to accommodate that huge influx of you know, of 209 00:12:52.960 --> 00:12:58.840 ambitious young officers with career promise, they actually mandated that 210 00:12:59.159 --> 00:13:03.159 they spend so much time in at least three years 211 00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:06.159 on a joint staff. The problem with that was the 212 00:13:06.399 --> 00:13:09.159 size of the staffs at the time was reasonably limited, 213 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:13.120 so they had to make the staffs bigger to accommodate 214 00:13:13.200 --> 00:13:18.759 all this access influx, and as a consequence, the staff 215 00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:22.279 became you know, the word I use is bloated. I 216 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:26.240 think that's not unfair. I quite frankly don't see how 217 00:13:26.679 --> 00:13:29.879 you know a job for a major or lieutenant commander 218 00:13:30.159 --> 00:13:34.360 as the graves registration officer at Central Command is going 219 00:13:34.399 --> 00:13:37.559 to produce another Halsy or another limits, And I think 220 00:13:37.600 --> 00:13:40.240 that's an accurate way of thinking about it. I've talked 221 00:13:40.279 --> 00:13:42.480 to a lot of people who've come out through that system, 222 00:13:42.639 --> 00:13:45.279 and many of them thought at that time their career 223 00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:48.399 was wasted when they could be honing their war fighting 224 00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:53.840 skills as fighter pilots, as battalion commanders, as operations officers, 225 00:13:53.879 --> 00:13:57.840 and so forth. As a consequence, that forces these people 226 00:13:58.080 --> 00:14:01.120 to develop what I would call a ticket punching mentality. 227 00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:04.759 You know, I have to go to a Command of 228 00:14:04.799 --> 00:14:08.000 Staff college, and I have to do my joint staff tour. 229 00:14:08.159 --> 00:14:10.799 Then I have to do a command tour, and I 230 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:14.200 have to go to the War College, and I personally 231 00:14:14.240 --> 00:14:17.159 think that this is causing a situation where we become 232 00:14:17.360 --> 00:14:20.000 jacks of all trade and masters are none. If that 233 00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:21.240 makes any sense. 234 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:23.159 It makes a lot of sense. One of the emphasis 235 00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:26.039 that the new Secretary of Defense is set out is 236 00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:29.519 he wants to get back to war fighting as the 237 00:14:29.559 --> 00:14:34.000 primary consideration for many things in the services. And I 238 00:14:34.080 --> 00:14:36.960 was really fascinated to see that Admiral McRaven, the four star, 239 00:14:37.360 --> 00:14:42.039 advised him to assemble a council of colonels, apparently because 240 00:14:42.279 --> 00:14:45.039 the unpromotable ones, because they're the only ones who would 241 00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:48.039 tell the truth to him. Is there indeed, to have 242 00:14:48.879 --> 00:14:53.120 a council of colonels at the elbow of the Secretary 243 00:14:53.159 --> 00:14:55.519 of Defense to stop him from him to deal with 244 00:14:55.559 --> 00:14:59.240 all these political people who were ticket punching and actually 245 00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:01.559 tell him what needs to be helped, tell them to 246 00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:05.080 know what needs to be done to get back to warfighting. Well, 247 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:09.559 the problem with that is where are you going to 248 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:13.320 get these colonels? In my view, Back in the day, 249 00:15:13.399 --> 00:15:17.240 when I was, you know, raising through the ranks, I 250 00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:21.759 was promoted to colonel and in nineteen seventy or nineteen 251 00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:26.120 ninety three, at that time, you would spend a certain 252 00:15:26.159 --> 00:15:29.840 amount of time in command at the battalion or the 253 00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:33.039 regimental level, and you would be bumped up once you 254 00:15:33.159 --> 00:15:37.559 finish that successfully to become a you know, to become 255 00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:42.000 maybe the chief of staff of a unit, the operations officer, 256 00:15:42.200 --> 00:15:46.120 and you would be seen as a guy with the 257 00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:49.840 type of knowledge and that they could give the commander 258 00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:54.159 a good, honest shot. And then in many cases, if 259 00:15:54.200 --> 00:15:57.200 those guys got passed over for promotion or so forth 260 00:15:57.240 --> 00:16:00.600 and didn't just want to retire, they would, you know, 261 00:16:00.679 --> 00:16:04.600 they would become the cigar chomping old colonels who you know, 262 00:16:04.679 --> 00:16:08.200 who basically were your chiefs of staff, your operations officers, 263 00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:11.080 and they were the guys that could look the general 264 00:16:11.080 --> 00:16:12.519 in the eye, know and they weren't going to be 265 00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:15.039 promoted and say, generally, you're all screwed up. But this, 266 00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:18.159 this is a this is a terrible idea. That's that's 267 00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:22.559 going away because of this ticket punching thing. Regimental commander 268 00:16:22.960 --> 00:16:25.279 now has to go to the ask to go do 269 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:29.279 as joint staff tour or do something else other than 270 00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:33.559 become a sort of a graver beard for the commanders 271 00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:37.519 and for the senior civilians. And I'm afraid that's kind 272 00:16:37.519 --> 00:16:41.360 of the that's a skill that Goldwater Nichols has got, 273 00:16:41.480 --> 00:16:43.799 as we do us out of I think too many, 274 00:16:43.960 --> 00:16:46.919 too many people if they get passed over for you know, 275 00:16:47.200 --> 00:16:52.519 for either colonel or for brigadier general rank, just say okay, fine, 276 00:16:52.559 --> 00:16:54.360 I'll you know, go out and make some money in 277 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:57.039 the contracting world and get out. And I think I 278 00:16:57.039 --> 00:17:01.039 think we've lost that corporate memory of you know, war 279 00:17:01.080 --> 00:17:06.039 fighting skills, and not just the ground forces, but in 280 00:17:06.119 --> 00:17:08.599 the Navy and probably the Air Force as well. 281 00:17:08.839 --> 00:17:12.559 Sometimes going back to the concept of time is where 282 00:17:12.759 --> 00:17:16.000 over twenty three years away from the events of nine 283 00:17:16.039 --> 00:17:18.680 on them. So the guys that are strapping on six 284 00:17:18.759 --> 00:17:21.920 right now, they've known nothing but the post nine to 285 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:25.720 eleven world and that institutional knowledge. All they know is 286 00:17:25.720 --> 00:17:28.039 what they know and what they've experienced. And I think 287 00:17:28.039 --> 00:17:32.400 you described a bit those secondary effects from Goldwater Nickels 288 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:36.359 and the incentives and disincentives that came along with it. 289 00:17:37.279 --> 00:17:40.720 Part of it is and you're exactly right. I left 290 00:17:40.759 --> 00:17:43.440 active duty in nine and to Bob and weave through 291 00:17:43.519 --> 00:17:46.200 what I call the Millington dictat and the people in 292 00:17:46.240 --> 00:17:48.960 active duty I'll still talk about, they'll still talk with 293 00:17:49.279 --> 00:17:52.400 They talk about this as well, is you have all 294 00:17:52.440 --> 00:17:56.400 these requirements that don't make any sense to them, whether 295 00:17:56.440 --> 00:17:59.880 it's these huge staffs where you have very talented people 296 00:18:00.759 --> 00:18:03.759 doing busy work, but you also had with these joint 297 00:18:03.759 --> 00:18:07.519 requirements for people, many of them before they even are 298 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:11.440 looking at commander command. Is this everybody has to have 299 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:14.400 as a master's degree has over the course of a 300 00:18:14.440 --> 00:18:17.839 few decades, it's warped what our war college is on. 301 00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:20.279 You talked a little bit about that part of the 302 00:18:20.319 --> 00:18:24.240 military education, what our war colleges have become. And in 303 00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:27.160 that fine out amount of time that you have these 304 00:18:27.200 --> 00:18:31.880 people's backsides and seats that the emphasis and the drive 305 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:34.720 for the time they're there may not be the most 306 00:18:34.880 --> 00:18:38.359 optimized thing for that what the military needs them to do. 307 00:18:38.480 --> 00:18:41.519 But it goes back to these incentives and disincentives and 308 00:18:41.559 --> 00:18:46.200 in theory the military controls, but it's reached the point 309 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:48.680 that they are in many ways controlling them. 310 00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.559 Yeah, I absolutely agree, because one of those ticket punching 311 00:18:52.599 --> 00:18:56.119 steps is of course they go to Command and Staff College. 312 00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:58.200 Now to go to Command and staff college due to 313 00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:02.160 the goal of the Skelton military very reform things. For 314 00:19:02.200 --> 00:19:05.079 some reason, they got it into their heads that all 315 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:09.519 masters degree would somehow make you militarily smarter and so forth. 316 00:19:09.720 --> 00:19:11.559 Quite as a matter of fact, I think that's had 317 00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:15.000 the opposite effect to make room for all the academic 318 00:19:15.279 --> 00:19:18.920 and I won't use the word, but the academic bs 319 00:19:18.960 --> 00:19:22.200 that goes into an academic master's degree. A lot of 320 00:19:22.279 --> 00:19:26.039 things like you know, amphibious planning for the Marine Corps, 321 00:19:26.119 --> 00:19:30.519 all sorts of other those little skills like being able 322 00:19:30.559 --> 00:19:35.799 to put together a coherent operation order, et cetera, et cetera, 323 00:19:36.200 --> 00:19:40.000 have to get scoped down or maybe even eliminated to 324 00:19:40.079 --> 00:19:44.400 give you the time to discuss such hurricane topics as 325 00:19:44.480 --> 00:19:49.880 the role of civil military relations and various various a 326 00:19:49.960 --> 00:19:51.920 lot of I took a look a couple of years 327 00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:54.400 ago at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, a 328 00:19:54.440 --> 00:19:57.160 curriculum ant of time, and I was appalled to see 329 00:19:57.160 --> 00:20:00.480 the short amount of time given the things like, uh, 330 00:20:00.680 --> 00:20:03.400 you know, amphibious operations, which used to be the Marine 331 00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:07.839 Corps bread and butter, and even some of the you know, 332 00:20:07.880 --> 00:20:13.720 the the military histories. I've been talking about, hard military histories, 333 00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:17.440 battle studies, and looking at you know, staff rights and 334 00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:21.240 things like that, we're quite frankly cut out of the 335 00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:24.119 curriculum to do a lot of the to get up. 336 00:20:24.279 --> 00:20:26.839 Quite frankly, what I feel is a second rate master's 337 00:20:26.839 --> 00:20:30.359 degree from a third rate institution that should have been 338 00:20:30.400 --> 00:20:33.200 a war college or should have been a commanded staff college. 339 00:20:33.319 --> 00:20:35.839 Well, among the other things that we've seen coming down 340 00:20:35.880 --> 00:20:38.680 the path is the is the sudden increase and interest 341 00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:43.680 in revitalizing the American shipping shipbuilding industry, and even some 342 00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:47.480 reaches outreaches to some of our allies like the South 343 00:20:47.559 --> 00:20:51.119 Koreans and the Japanese to help us maybe help us 344 00:20:51.119 --> 00:20:54.160 build and develop our own shipyards as well as build 345 00:20:54.200 --> 00:20:57.400 some ships perhaps in their in their yards. That is 346 00:20:57.440 --> 00:21:00.039 that a positive movement? You're in your way of thinking. 347 00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:08.400 Well, I think revitalizing the entire military defense complex is 348 00:21:08.480 --> 00:21:12.079 really critical, and trying to keep up with the Chinese 349 00:21:12.160 --> 00:21:16.160 who were outbuilding us at least five to one, and 350 00:21:16.680 --> 00:21:19.559 you know, capital ships and so forth. You know about 351 00:21:20.359 --> 00:21:23.799 shortly before, I well, shortly before, at the end of 352 00:21:23.799 --> 00:21:27.200 the Cold War, I was a fellow at the Naval 353 00:21:27.240 --> 00:21:30.680 War College for their Center for Naval Warfare Studies, and 354 00:21:30.759 --> 00:21:34.559 Newt Gingrich, who was at that time the Speaker of 355 00:21:34.599 --> 00:21:37.440 the House came up and gave us a talk, and 356 00:21:37.519 --> 00:21:40.680 he warned about the danger of what he called the 357 00:21:40.720 --> 00:21:45.440 peace dividend. We were at the time watching the Soviet 358 00:21:45.559 --> 00:21:49.759 Union collapse, Berlin Wall had come down, and he basically 359 00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:52.680 told us that we would be making a very very 360 00:21:52.680 --> 00:21:55.960 serious mistake if we didn't at least keep the defense 361 00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:59.519 industrial base warm. And I think they at this point 362 00:21:59.519 --> 00:22:02.640 in time, we let that happen, and thirty year, you know, 363 00:22:04.240 --> 00:22:07.599 thirty almost forty years later, we see the chickens coming 364 00:22:07.599 --> 00:22:08.319 home to roost. 365 00:22:08.480 --> 00:22:12.279 It's amazing that people appreciated that problem and had seen 366 00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:14.720 it for so long, to a point that it's we've 367 00:22:14.759 --> 00:22:17.759 run out of time in miny regards to address that. 368 00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:20.160 And one thing you brought up that I think is 369 00:22:20.160 --> 00:22:22.359 one of the worst examples of it is, you know, 370 00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:26.039 you emphasize our submarine levels and how important our submarines are, 371 00:22:26.079 --> 00:22:28.359 and anybody who looks at the fight in the Pacific 372 00:22:28.759 --> 00:22:32.240 knows how critical our SSNs are. We've entered into August 373 00:22:32.319 --> 00:22:35.119 with Australia to eventually get them I think the latest 374 00:22:35.160 --> 00:22:37.839 number US saw was four at some period of time, 375 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:40.839 but to get them to have a nuclear submarine capability, 376 00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:44.400 and yet We also have situations where our existing submarine 377 00:22:44.799 --> 00:22:49.000 fleet just we have boats sitting there for literally years 378 00:22:49.039 --> 00:22:53.799 just waiting for regular maintenance. What was the underlying cause? 379 00:22:53.880 --> 00:22:57.599 Do you think that we waited so long until it's 380 00:22:57.640 --> 00:23:01.519 really reached the crisis point that we would talk about it, 381 00:23:01.559 --> 00:23:05.039 But there wasn't an effort for people to invest their 382 00:23:05.079 --> 00:23:09.039 personal and professional capital to say stop, this has got 383 00:23:09.119 --> 00:23:11.200 to be fixed, and we got to fix it now. 384 00:23:11.279 --> 00:23:14.920 So we now find ourselves halfway through the physical year 385 00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:18.039 twenty five and you're not seeing the needle move in 386 00:23:18.079 --> 00:23:20.200 the direction you think it would be when you look 387 00:23:20.200 --> 00:23:21.880 at some of the briefs that we're getting on the 388 00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:24.880 threats that we have coming inside of a few palm cycles. 389 00:23:25.079 --> 00:23:27.240 I think part of the problem is we read our 390 00:23:27.319 --> 00:23:30.599 own press releases. So we the military, we the United States, 391 00:23:30.599 --> 00:23:35.759 have advertised ever since essentially Desert Storm, that are technological 392 00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:40.200 overmatch of potential enemies as such that we really didn't 393 00:23:40.319 --> 00:23:43.119 need to build a lot of ships, build a lot 394 00:23:43.119 --> 00:23:47.920 of you know, more tanks. We you know, we basically 395 00:23:48.039 --> 00:23:51.519 convinced ourselves that we were invincible. And as we were 396 00:23:51.559 --> 00:23:55.079 doing that, you know, the potential opposition has been taking notes, 397 00:23:55.279 --> 00:23:58.160 taking a look at the way we fight, ta look 398 00:23:58.200 --> 00:24:01.920 at the way we do things come back, and essentially, 399 00:24:03.480 --> 00:24:08.079 you know, they slowly, but you know, and not particularly overtly. 400 00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:11.359 We're quietly figuring out what we were doing, trying to 401 00:24:11.400 --> 00:24:15.160