Transcription
What I think is really important is to try to always identify the assumptions on which your strategy is is based. And and to challenge those assumptions. So we could talk more about all this. I'm try try to go through this pretty quickly.
What what are some of the pitfalls in strategy that you should be aware of? I mentioned this already. You know, predictable for a historian to say studying history is is really important. Oddly enough, historians are the ones often who are most reluctant to apply history. But I think there's there's a shift in that now. There are some great programs here at at Hoover with with Professor Cocking. The Hoover History Lab. My colleague Victor Davis Hanson does a fantastic job. With the military history seminar. You have the an applied history programs at Harvard, for example. Many other universities as well.
I think the you have to guard against the abuse of history. And these are kind of the facile analogies you hear a lot of times. You know, in in Afghanistan, which we were talking about, we we often heard, you know, it's the graveyard of empires, you know, for for example. There are a lot of these sort of phrases, you know, misunderstandings of history that can be that can be that can be misleading.
And then what I think is really important is to try to always identify the assumptions on which your strategy is is based. And and to challenge those assumptions. So if you think about really this kind of unipolar moment in the in the post-Cold War period and the overconfidence, we we talked a little bit about the assumptions that underpinned our approach to strategy overall, which were, of course, that this arc of history had guaranteed the primacy of our free and open societies that great power competition was a relic of the past that our our technological prowess would guarantee our security. But those assumptions carried over into specific assumptions about approaches to other countries, to rivals, adversaries like China for example. And the the assumption that really underpinned our China strategy in the post-Cold War period pretty consistently across multiple administrations was that China having been welcomed into the international order would would would play by the rules and as China prospered it would liberalize its economy and ultimately liberalize its form of governance, you know.
How's that working out? I mean the assumption that underpinned I would say US policy toward Iran across multiple administrations with the exception I would say of maybe the the two Trump administrations is that Iran's theocratic regime would fundamentally shift its nature over time and ameliorate or greatly re its permanent hostility to the United States, Israel, and the West if it was only reintegrated you know into the global economy for example. If we took a conciliatory approach to Iran you know the the supreme leader's heart would grow two sizes bigger you know like the Grinch on Christmas Eve you know and he'll just have a complete change of heart. Or or that if we welcomed Iran back into the international order another assumption was that that that that the moderates in Iran you know the so-called Republicans would would gain more more more influence and and the and then the the revolutionaries would have less influence. This is a this is an Iranian I think deception operation against us to can you can you propagate that myth but that assumption I believe was fundamentally flawed.
How about with Russia because this is quite relevant with the with the summit coming up between President Trump and President Putin. Under multiple administrations US leaders believed that if we could only allay Putin's security concerns, Putin will come to the conclusion that his his future is more with the West, right? Integrating with Europe. That's better for Russia, right? Then then then for Russia to continue its aggression against the West. And so we did a series of things to try to allay those security concerns. President George W. Bush met him, remember? And and said he looked into his soul and saw somebody who really cares about his people. You know, you had you had President Obama even after the invasion of Georgia leaned over to Medvedev, remember when he was keeping the seat warm for Putin? And and said, "Hey, I'll more flexibility after the election." He traded off missile defenses in Poland. Again, under this belief that we should just allay Putin's security concerns. President Trump labored under this as well, right? He he could he could bring Putin in from the cold. It's not just Americans, right? Look at Chancellor Angela Merkel. For how many years, right? Thought that she could be the Putin whisperer, right? And by buying more Russian gas and integrating Russian war into Europe economically, right? That he would have he would have a change of of of heart. President Biden went to Geneva in the last summit between two presidents and during which I think he got humiliated there. And one of my hopes is maybe that President Trump will see what Putin's trying to do with him in Alaska and uh and and you know, kind of back into this approach of putting more pressure on Russia. But President Biden pulled our ships out of the Black Sea, listed all the things he wouldn't do to support Ukraine, suspended our lethal assistance there, evacuated all of our advisors, right? I mean, evacuated and scuttled our embassy. It looked like a green light for an invasion to me, right?
So so Putin is but Putin is driven by something different than than really security concerns about NATO. He's driven by his sense of honor lost associated with the collapse of of the of the Soviet Union. And is is a man who is obsessed obsessed with restoring Russia to national greatness. Now, we can't compete with with us on our own terms, right? His economy is the size of of Italy's economy. For example, uh he's trashed his economy. I mean, he's spending 50% of his budget on uh on defense now. He has a labor shortage. He's not diversified the the economy. He's sitting on piles of cash he can't convert. He's in a real hurt. But, his theory of victory is to drag everybody else down under the theory that he can kind of be the last the last person standing. So, what's driving him is this sense of honor lost, this obsession with restoring Russia to to uh to to national greatness. And of course, he and Xi Jinping, other dictators, are also obsessed with staying in power, right? Because it would it would be wouldn't be a a good situation for either one of them. And and Putin uh has amassed a lot of wealth um and he can only access that wealth if he stays in power.
So, what are the assumptions that are underpinning your policies? And this is where I think Zach Shore does a fantastic job in all his books, but in particular this book of Sense of the Enemy, where he emphasizes strategic empathy, which is really your ability to view these complex challenges from the perspective of the other, with particular attention to what are the emotions and the aspirations that drive it that drive and constrain the other.
I think uh you have to really be careful about optimism and and group think. You know, there there is there is the tendency uh to give bosses the answer that that that that they want to have uh to to consistent with what their policy preferences are. You see how intelligence can sometimes bend to give policy makers really what, you know, what what the the their prefer the preferred intelligence. Just look at the Director of National Intelligence's assessment, for example, uh about about Iran, you know, and and Iran nuclear program uh recently or or other I've seen many other cases in which um the the intelligence community is is sort of bending uh intelligence for policy preference.
When I when I asked for a paper on the situation in Afghanistan, when I first came to this job as national security advisor, I wrote across the top of it, "Did we outsource this to the Taliban?" You know, because it it had all these elements in it about, you know, "It's really the Taliban separate from Al-Qaeda. You know, they're they're really they're they're more willing to share power now. If they were to gain power, they'd be nicer to women." You know, how's how's all that working out, you know? Um And and and so you have to you have to you have to guard against against this and and and group think and and really as a as a young person, maybe working on a staff or something, you should try to you really emphasize not falling into this trap and and providing alternative perspectives and and guarding against guarding against it.
Also, you have to you have to really guard against contriving consensus. And and and there is a tendency to try to get everybody to agree and then to bring one option to a president. Uh this is the case in the run-up to the Vietnam War, for example, when when President Lyndon Johnson, he wanted a strategy for the war that would that would allow him to pursue really his domestic political priorities. He saw Vietnam mainly as a danger to what he wanted to do with the Great Society legislation, for example, or just by forgetting elected in his own right in 1964. And so he wanted a strategy that would that would permit him or make sure that he didn't alienate some key constituencies on which that domestic agenda depended. And what he got was a strategy of graduated pressure. And everybody signed up for that and brought it to the brought it to the president. And so this is why I think it's really important an element of strategic competence is to always try to develop multiple options for a leader. Because it's oftentimes in the comparison of those options where you can draw out long-term costs and consequences and you should differentiate these options by degree of risk, for example, and degree of resources and so forth. So, beware of contrived consensus.
And then and then also be wary of passivity or inaction. You know, the risks of action are always apparent, right? They're easy to kind of envision, right? If you if you act against Iran's nuclear program, what could Iran do, right? Iran could try to activate what's left of its of its threat network across the Middle East, could attack US bases and US individuals. It can conduct terrorist attacks internationally. Maybe it has some cyber capabilities that that it could use. It could attack shipping in the Gulf, right? You can you can imagine all of this. It could employ drones again, maybe even against Saudi oil fields as they have done in in the past and oil facilities in the past. But but also you if you if you're considering those risks of action, you have to also consider the risk of inaction. What if you don't act to take out Iran's nuclear capabilities in these deep buried sites? And and you don't block their path to nuclear weapon. And at the end of Israel's 12-day campaign and with that latent capability, can could the Iranians maybe dash to some kind of a nuclear device, right? I mean, that's possible. So, you have to consider the risk of the risk of inaction as well.
So, I'll just leave you with this and I'd love to hear what's what's on your minds, what you'd like to talk about. So, I this is kind of you know, a checklist kind of looking thing, but but it really is just a way to think about these complex problems. The first thing that when you're framing a challenge to national security is try to define that problem on its own terms. Apply design thinking to it. Ask first-order questions. What is the nature of this challenge? And and what is driving this challenge? What are the emotions and the ideology that's driving Iran and the others? Then I think then I think what you should do is identify your vital interests. What is at stake? Why do we care? Typically, this is about American security or prosperity or influence in the world. Then when you identify those interests, then you can view that complex challenge through the lens of those vital interests and craft an overarching goal and more specific objectives. Uh and and and sort of answer the so what? The so what? Because you have to answer the so what? Why do we care about it? And then and then as I mentioned, identify the assumptions on which your planning effort would be based. And then and then of course, you know, examine examine history uh to to deepen your understanding. Understand what could go wrong with the risks and costs might be.
And I'm just going to put this up as an example. So I mentioned the overall example of of the assumptions that underpinned China's policies and strategies. I see Secretary Mattis here. He was in this meeting that we had I think in March of 2017. Uh and and uh where the purpose of the meeting was to frame a new China policy for President Trump in advance of of the uh summit he was going to have with Xi Jinping in April. And what we did is we asked the departments and agencies across our government to collaborate on this five-page paper, a framing paper uh for that new strategy. So that when we went into Mar-a-Lago, we would have a sense of kind of the direction of US policy. Not the whole policy done cuz President Trump had just come into office in in that January. Uh but we would have a a foundation for our general approach uh toward the Chinese Communist Party. And I brought with me uh the a series of papers uh of that that described previous administration's policy towards China. And I pulled out the Obama administration uh policy towards China and read a portion of it. And that portion that I read really uh made clear that the assumption that had underpinned the Obama administration policy towards China was this assumption that China would would liberalize. That China would once welcomed to the international community would liberalize its economy and liberalize its form of governance. And I I just noted that that had not been the case and that we were about to help President Trump affect maybe the most significant shift in US foreign policy since the end of the end of the Cold War. And these were just some of the new assumptions that we put in into place that were sort of the opposite of of the assumptions that underpinned previous policies.
Okay, so with that what I'd like to do is just open up for questions. See where you'd like to take the discussion.