Andrew Hoehn & Thom Shanker — Age of Danger

oh right okay foreign okay well good afternoon everyone and uh welcome to politics and prose I'm I'm Brad Graham the co-owner of the bookstore along with my wife Lisa Muscatine and uh it's a particular treat um for me to be hosting uh both uh Thomas Shanker and Andy hohn who are here to talk about their new book age of danger keeping America safe in an era of new superpowers new weapons and new threats particular treat for me because I knew both of these these guys in my previous Life as a journalist Tom and I covered the Pentagon together back during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan I was with the Washington Post then and he was I he was reporting for the for the New York Times and let me tell you he was he was tough competition uh he eventually went on to become an editor at the Times managing their National Security and foreign policy coverage and also co-authored a bestseller a Counter-Strike the untold story of America's Secret campaign against al Qaeda after nearly two and a half decades with the times and before that some years with the Chicago Tribune Tom a couple of years ago left journalism to direct the project for media and National Security at uh George Washington University right where he works now Andy is well into his third decade in defense the defense policy Arena he spent about half the first part of that about 15 years at the Pentagon where he helped shape U.S military strategy policy and planning and the other a more recent half the past 15 or plus years he spent at the Rand Corporation where he's now senior vice president and director of research so clearly these two guys have have a lot of experience thinking and writing about military and National Security matters and as might be expected they've produced a very thoughtful and insightful book about what more can be done to ensure America is better protected their book begins with an observation and a couple of questions the observation is that the government currently spends a hell of a lot of money on National Security roughly two point roughly one and a quarter a trillion dollars annually which is which is a whopping amount yet as the authors note our national security apparatus often has been stunned by events at home and abroad so Tom and Andy address two basic questions first how is it possible that our public institutions seem so unprepared and get it wrong on so many critical issues and second what can be done to make our national security apparatus operate better in the age of danger of Tom and Andy argue that our national security system needs an overhaul both to provide better intelligence and and warnings and also to respond more effectively and the authors propose some ways to achieve this they're very persuasive as you'll hear in a minute and uh and and and hopefully the case they make will help bring about new strategies processes and into institutional tools to deal with the challenges posed by rival superpowers China and Russia and such future threats as pandemics cyber attacks drones and climate change so ladies and Gentlemen please join me in welcoming Tom Shanker and Andy home [Applause] thanks to everybody for coming out today on this rainy day in Washington uh it's such a honor for Andy and me to be at what's truly our hometown bookstore Brad mentioned that we uh competed friendly competition traveled a lot I remember one night we were in one of those 27 hour flights back from Iraq and Brad and I were sitting back chatting away after a long day and one of rumsfeld's top aides said New York Times Washington Post Macy's gimbals you guys can't collaborate so so it's great that we can collaborate today so so wonderfully as you'll see shortly Andy's the brains of this operation so he's going to kick us off here Tom thanks so much and Brad thank you for having us and uh just uh really welcome the discussion with the group today you you might wonder uh how does a long time National Security Insider me and a long-time reporter Tom together to write a book like this uh you know as Brad said I entered the Pentagon just as the Cold War was winding down I was part of the team that helped write the first post-cold war defense strategy I think the Washington Post got that story when that first came out Brad was I was uh he used to scoop me all the time I was present for the Gulf War um worked on NATO enlargement and issues in in the 1990s uh was in the Pentagon on 9 11 when the plane came in a very sad day for us and I stayed and left shortly after uh the invasion of Iraq I've been at brand since that time as Brad mentioned uh Tom was in stationed in Moscow with his wife Lisa covered the Balkan Wars uh was then assigned to the Pentagon in the New York Times he's traveled the world with cabinet members senior senior military leaders other top National Security officials we've known each other what now Tom 20 years right 20 years and we've become close colleagues as well as close friends and we've been in contact throughout this time and I think four or five years ago we sat down over lunch we would do this frequently three four times a year and um found ourselves coming at this issue these questions that we're wrestling with same questions different Vantage points I as I was approaching it as the person on the inside or wrestling with these topics in the work we were doing to support the Pentagon and the larger National Security establishment Tom was still at the New York Times and what we were seeing is we were we were facing bigger and bigger problems problems emerging and old problems not going away uh failed Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan lack of preparedness for emerging threats slowness in the system's sluggishness all over losing key technology edges we could see it we could see it coming and the country uh unprepared for a global pandemic and a whole lot more uh you know I want to be clear about what we say in the book although we often use the the expression things are broken not everything's broken for example I think we would count how intelligence was matched to a whole set of actions in support to Ukraine as Russia was poised to invade probably nothing like it since Adelaide Stevenson brought intelligence out at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis it was handled very well but there are enough things that aren't working um that we thought it important to really see what's going on here so that led us to a whole series of dinners at restaurants around town here with uh former cabinet officials other key top generals and leaders key thinkers uh very importantly people in the trenches people doing the work every day to try to get a sense of what's really happening we did a lot of thinking a lot of discussing before we ever put uh put our fingers to the keyboard and really try to sort out um what what it was we were looking at Brad has already highlighted the key Paradox that we were that we really discovered here and that is we spend in excess of a trillion dollars a year a trillion dollars a year uh not with a B but with a t and uh we're puzzled by how often we get it wrong you know among the reasons for us is um not just that we didn't think or we didn't anticipate sometimes we didn't but we think the machine the machine as we call it isn't working or isn't working as it should and let me explain for just a moment what we think what we call the machine what it is there's a there's an element of the larger insta set of Institutions that provides warning of problems that are arising you might think of the intelligence Community but warning comes from a whole lot of different places but that gets fused and and concentrated and gets directed at the right people at decision makers so they can make decisions but warning only works if another part of the machine the action machine is ready to receive it and what we were seeing in this book is there are cases to be sure where the warning wasn't taking place but there are more cases where the warning was there but there wasn't a receiving a receptor on the other end in the action machine as we call it to make things work so from our standpoint if if we're really going to respond to the kind of challenges that we see emerging we have to have both of these pieces lined up properly a warning machine that's going to provide all of the information you need to know about what's going on in the world and we'll talk a bit more in a minute about how we want to open the aperture on that but if the warning machine has to send the signals of the prompts so these are the problems that are coming but then you have to have an action machine on the other end that's going to be able to deal with it that's going to be able to have it's going to be ready and ready to be put into motion or put into action when the leadership calls on it that's what you're going that's what we talk about in the book Tom why don't I turn to you and let you uh pulling that puzzle a little bit sure thanks Andy and again thank you all for coming out on a rainy Saturday to join us here you know I'd like to take you back to uh 9 11. uh Andy was inside the building on that day I was getting off the D6 bus at Farragut North switching to the blue line to go to my desk at the Pentagon this is Washington DC so anybody who was in town this was a visceral painful attack on ourselves on our home Hometown and to be sure we haven't faced a similar catastrophic terror attack since then and that's a great credit to all the people who work these issues here and abroad and and to make sure that that remains true that there isn't another catastrophic attack but that was more than two decades ago and what's happened since is that the focus the zoom-like focus on counterterrorism crowded out so many other issues we used a microscope when it was time to switch to a telescope we were on zoom and that did not let us see a host of panoramic issues that have really crept up in the 20 years that we were circling this strategic cul-de-sac called the Middle East and that's one of the things that Andy and I really really point to now don't get me wrong any death above zero is a tragedy a 911 3 000 people died those scars will never heal think about what happened this nation launched two forever Wars spent trillions of dollars thousands of Americans have died even more in the Middle East compare that to covid death toll is one million and rising and this nation never went onto a war footing and arguments continue today about how significant is the pandemic and what should be done Clorox versus masks I mean it's just crazy to think where this country went during pandemic and what Andy and I argue is that we can no longer Define National Security through tools that kill people and blow things up we simply need a broader more sophisticated understanding of the problems that are emerging and so we talk about in our book cyber and data security climate security as National Security Public Health preparedness as National Security and even food security and we'll talk more about that you know in our book on that last Point Andy and I traveled to Kansas State University Manhattan Kansas they call it the little apple Wonderful Name where a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff became president and he had read all the intelligence seized from Al Qaeda caves and realize that Al Qaeda early on was studying animal disease crop blight foot and mouth disease brucellosis and how transportable it is so this Kansas State University president of former chairman lobbied and got billions of dollars from the government to build a national bio aggro defense facility that most people have never even heard of and it's just opening right now it's under its tests today because this General knew something had to be done to protect us from a threat that nobody was focusing on I mean we have this constellation of nuclear Laboratories all over the country studying nuclear weapons and effects how could we not have Laboratories preparing us for biological and agricultural threats and you think that it's not possible it really is Andy and my reporting took us to some history in 1997 in New Zealand there are a bunch of farmers who were angered at the fact that New Zealand didn't allow a certain kind of rabbit pesticide because wild rabbits I guess are as plentiful as Hobbits in New Zealand and so one of these Farmers traveled to the Czech Republic where a rabbit virus that causes death by hemorrhaging is allowed he put it on his handkerchief this virus lives for seven days flew to New Zealand and suddenly in 97 and 98 the New Zealand government found just a pandemic of wild rabbits dying from this horrible disease so if you think it can't happen or it's difficult just imagine a terrorist or even naturally occurring brucellosis hoof and mouth disease breaking out here well this lab is a new line of defense cyber the same way you know I wrote so often as the Brad and others about the threat of a cyber Pearl Harbor that some adversary could turn off the lights on the East Coast crash the Health Care system crashed the financial system but while we were looking for the big Pearl Harbor China did a quiet Pearl Harbor the largest theft of intellectual property in world history billions and billions of dollars China stole from us and it's no accident that the new generation Chinese stealth fighter looks a lot like the American cell fighter because they got the plans without having to pay for the r d Russia a place I lived five years my wife calls it five Winters that's one of the one of the few things that we disagree on um you know we we call Putin's Russia the threat hiding in plain sight everything Putin has done that has surprised us he told us he was going to do in advance but we didn't listen we wished it away we willfully thought that the new Russia would enter the European orbit and it wouldn't be a problem I'm often asked is there a new cold war with Russia that's the wrong question Putin is at war with us today let me repeat that Putin is at war with us today what is election hacking other than an attempt at regime change Putin did that one of the strengths of our democracy is that we're very binary it's hard to take this country to war and that's a wonderful thing peace war on off not so in Putin's Russia Vladimir Putin has a very sort of he views War as a Continuum of conflict like he has a rheostat and it goes from you know things like disinformation election acting all the way to invading The Sovereign territory of a neighbor and we are just not prepared for this kind of threat Andy and I interviewed the four-star Air Force General who ran the NATO military in 2014 when Russia first invaded Ukraine the first invasion he told us that NATO and the U.S had zero tactical warning that Putin was going to invade Ukraine he was so angry he said he went off like a well-hit nine iron in a tile bathroom I just love that image and and he flew to Washington and met with all of the intelligence Chiefs to say how could this have happened how could a Russian army prepare to invade a Sovereign Nation and you not know and what he was told it was a matter of intention and investment on the day before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 about 15 000 American officials in the warning machine that he talked about were focused on the Soviet Union fifteen thousand the day before Russian invaded Ukraine in 2014 that number dwindled to one thousand day before the Berlin Wall fell 50 percent of the intelligence budget went to watching the Soviet Union on the day before the invasion of Ukraine 2014 that it dropped to 15 percent counterterrorism other issues had so squashed our ability to watch Russia that we were caught blind now to be sure the core of Russia analysts who remained are first-rate people Andy and I interviewed a lot of them I found out after leaving the times that many of them are my neighbors I'd be at the recycling bin it's like oh you didn't work at agriculture all these years you're with which agency so and they're great people and they're very very smart but numbers matter Focus matters attention matters and that's just Russia the other pacing threat is China I mentioned slowness a little bit ago uh I was the person leading the strategy review at the Pentagon when the 9 11 attack took place the focus at that time was really to begin thinking and preparing for what China's military modernization was going to mean a lot of attention was being given to it there was some really talented far-seeing people that had been pointing to this challenge that was going to be in the future uh we spoke to you know perhaps the the the the the top of those thinkers a fellow named Andy Marshall uh often known as The Yoda the Yoda of the Pentagon we saw him just a few months before his death and he reminded Us in that discussion that as far back as 1985. people began thinking and saying they didn't know with certainty but what they could see was that China's own Economic Development its own economic progression was putting it on a pace that was going to allow it to support a military modernization should it choose to do so 1985 he and a and a colleague and an economist made a projection that they thought the Chinese economy would surpass I mean would surpass the Soviet economy by 2010. now they weren't projecting the end of the Cold War at that moment but they were seeing how this was diverging and they thought this was the time to begin preparing this is the warning machine sending signals but of course as Tom said 9 11 came and so this Focus to begin with sort of the steady preparation on China just had to wait had to wait for certainly the aftermath of 9 11 had to wait for the war in Afghanistan definitely had to wait for the when the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan were both underway and there were a lot of people at the time that thought time's on our side we've got this enormous Advantage uh if those that might think back to the mid 90s there was a Taiwan Strait crisis in which China had fired some missiles that were described as bracketing the island that is firing to the left of the island and to the right of the island sending a signal using weapons to send a diplomatic signal and the United States sent two carriers in fact two aircraft carriers uh only one of them made it made it to the straight the other got called off beforehand steamed through the Taiwan Strait crisis over because the leadership in China at the time knew that there wasn't they weren't capable of taking on the US military we had too much Advantage at that time was on our side but years have elapsed you know years go by decades go by it's now 20 years later and many of the advantages that we saw then don't exist now we went from a position of great advantage to maybe one of parity today uh when you get into the book and you read in this section one of the pieces that really caught our attention is when we sat with the top General in the Pentagon and he laments the one thing they were seeing in the war games they were running so they run these War Games repeatedly and they do it to try to learn um applied lessons reflect that in their own choices about technology they're buying reflect that in training that's underway and then bring that back to the next game and what he said to us what he was seeing in war game after war game is that they were simply losing faster losing faster but that's not the most frightening of all when we look at how warning and action we're being paired I mentioned we'd had these dinners with people and we always ended every one of these discussions with the you know The Parting question is we're wrapping things up when we say we lean in and say but what worries you most and what we were hearing time after time was that we were not ready for a global pandemic that was almost certain to come that was in 2017 2018 and 2019. and that was coming from people with backgrounds and intelligence with backgrounds in Broad national security policy it was coming as well from people in in public health Fields but it was coming from so many different places the signals were pouring in but we weren't ready and we all know what the result of that was and that's because the action machine that I talked about on the at the beginning of this the action machine wasn't in place the warning was there but even if someone was ready to act we didn't have the pieces in place and that's that's one of the things that really did catch our catch our attention so what do we do um you'll read the story here of a public health official who I think correctly wants to think about public health preparedness the way we think about military readiness there's not a soldier or a marine out there who hasn't heard of task force Smith task force Smith is the unit we sent in the early in the Korean War onto the Korean Peninsula and it wasn't ready and it was and and it faced terrible casualties um it wasn't the fault of the of the task force itself it was a fault of the system they were untrained they didn't have the right weapons they were outgunned and they had significant losses this public health official um once you know looks at at the problems that we had during the pandemic and wants to view that the way a soldier in a marine looks a task force Smith the military thinks about readiness as the idea that you're ready to fight tonight not tomorrow not the next day no pickup games um when we look at the kind of problems that we're talking about here we need to be ready for the next pandemic um and the physician who we were talking to wants us to be ready to care for people tonight just as the military wants to be ready to fight tonight create the system build the training buy the needed stocks to jump start the process even know who to call when the morning warning message is blinking red when that message comes in uh we learned a great deal from the pandemic but we haven't fixed the machine we need to do it Tom thanks Andy the machine that we are talking about today was basically built in 1947 after World War II the Department of Defense was formed CIA United Nations NATO fantastic institutions have served us well but as a a former National Security advisor told us it's time just to park that 47 Chevy in the garage and get a new car and so that's what we're talking about here there were major reforms after 9 11 but again they were all focused on counter-terrorism which does not include this more expansive definition of national security that Andy and I are advocating for I also want to make clear as Brad said in the introduction we spend about 1.2 trillion dollars on National Security you are not looking at two people advocating for more money we are not we're not saying give the defense department more money we want the money that's spent now across the system to be spent smarter and wiser and in new and creative ways you know we've been sort of like the athlete our military that does one thing really really well but we now need to make the National Security apparatus you know a pentath elite we're ready to compete in a decathlon it has to do 10 15 20 things well and we have the money for it people if it's just spent wiser and in smarter ways we're also not create not advocating creating a bunch of new institutions like after 9 11 when the national counter-terrorism Center was set up the office of Director of National Intelligence Northern command those are firing they're they're functioning well but what we are advocating is again a more agile creative way of thinking we interviewed the four-star general who absolutely reorganized Special Operations forces to make it an incredibly lethal and potent killing machine he's an advocate of turning the US government not into a killing machine but into a life-saving machine to put that same intelligence knock down the Walls between the FBI and you know CIA and health and human services and Treasury and bring them together in new and creative ways we interviewed a former Defense secretary who's also a former CIA director and oh by the way a former OMB director because you have to follow the money I mean you can talk the good talk but if there's not budget money put on a problem it's just a fantasy and he too Advocates creation of what we're calling standing Joint Task forces to deal with a cyber crisis to deal with a Health crisis deal with a data crisis to deal with this food crisis because you don't know when it's coming or where it will come from but rather than creating new institutions let's get people with the expertise from all across the government bring them together four times a year train practice get to know each other see where the strengths are what should be stockpiled where are we short what do we have so that if any of these predictable problems arise we're ready and this exercise this muscle movement will also help us be ready when the unpredictable surprise comes along before I turn it over to Andy for the concluding thoughts I'd like to share with you the two really Soulful takeaways that I have from the last five years of of research one is that Andy wrote a line in our conclusion that of course when I was editing it and it sort of was nice but the more I've thought about it it just really really stuck with me we may talk about the National Security machine the warning machine the action machine but we're really talking about p and there's been no more important time ever in our history where the kind of people that we put in government the kind of people we attract to government the kind of people we elect to lead us it's so important that we get people who can help end this period of polarization which is an absolute national security threat I'm not advocating a specific candidate not a specific party but we've got to get to a place where there's a bipartisan approach to keeping our nation safe the other Epiphany I had is that the future needs a seat at the table our government's designed to deal with the problems tomorrow the problems next week the problems running up to the election no we have to have people who are empowered to think around the corner and toward the Horizon because it's the short-term thinking the crocodile closest to the canoe or the kayak we have to look on Shore over land and in the sky to be ready to keep our nation safe Andy let me tell you just a little bit more about the book itself and how we how we developed it it could have been a much much longer book it might have even been several books but what we tried to do is take you inside these stories that we tell so you're going to find characters in your we've mentioned a few names along the way I think you're going to enjoy meeting these people they're just really interesting they're all Patriots they're all dedicated to really thinking hard about American Security um you know the thing that all of them are coming away with from their various Vantage points and is is the idea we've mentioned already but I want to mention again that the problems are just too important right now for pickup games we need to have plans in place training uh supplies for some of these things there these problems are coming to coming at us and we need to be ready in a in a very very serious way uh Tom mentioned you know it was our Nash The Genius of the National Security leaders of 75 years ago that built the Machinery that we're living off today uh much of that's represented in the National Security Act of 1947. that's the point in which we created the Department of Defense we created the intelligence Community the National Security Council system that operates today was all part of that act we've added to it over time we need a new modern version of that uh you know when we look back at the genius of what they built they were wrestling with their own problems at that time the fear then and rightly was how to avoid nuclear war in the world we've done that so far the machine they built wasn't perfect but it delivered delivered time and time again but it's not delivering sufficiently now we just time to build that new system uh you know we had a really nice conversation with uh for our friend uh former chairman of the house armed services committee Mac Thornberry and you know Mac came away from that discussion with us and he he has this on the on the back cover of the book but you know his line was no more excuses we know what the problem is no more excuses we need to fix this you know it reminded me of a line that I came across some years ago it was uh JFK and one of his uh State of the Union speeches was calling for fixing a different kind of problem but I love the image he created you know when he when he called this out he said you know the best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining I think we need to face it we need a new roof and that's really where we end up in this book thank you very very much we look forward to your questions so we'd love to take some questions we have 25 minutes if you would come to the microphone please because this is being recorded by politics and prose microphones right right up here please in December I graduated with my master's degree in International Security and I am currently thank you very much and um I'm currently a teacher but I am looking to move into the National Security Arena so my question to you is what is your maybe one or several pieces of advice that you would give a current a person trying to currently enter the sphere the the National Security Arena Tom I'm going to start uh I get this question often and I first off congratulations uh it's a complicated Arena you're entering and there are a lot of various Pathways into it Toms was journalism mine was uh mine actually began with journalism I worked for uh the Marine Corps Gazette which is a monthly Journal written for the Marine Corps officers as I was coming out of graduate school I had never envisioned that I would be there but what I learned from my time at the Marine Corps Gazette is it prepared me so well for when I got into the Pentagon look for those circuitous routes you know there's no direct pathway in um one of the things we argue in this book and strongly is the idea that there's a public sector that plays such a critical role but the kind of problems we're talking about aren't going to be solved with the public and private sector aren't working together so yeah yes look for that job in the intelligence Community or the Pentagon or the state department or increasingly what people are talking about you know as we think about the new joint Chief said Treasury in Commerce as we think about trade and sanctions as tools of foreign policy but don't overlook the private sector opportunities the ngos that play Such critical roles and so forth it's it's not probably going to be a direct path into this career it's going to be a circuitous one but be sure to sort of have fun along the way fun as in stay involved stay committed learn what you can and there's really exciting opportunities out there for you it's interesting because we have not practiced that question the first time we've gotten it but we're in total agreement um there's no place worth going you can get to by a shortcut you know do the hard work pay your dues I don't like the word Mentor it's just odd but do find people more experienced than the new and try to work with really smart people I mean I found in the workplace that there are those who view competence as competition don't be that kind of person you know one of the reasons I became as good a journalist as I am is I've befriended reporters who were way better than me and and that's the the secret and finally think of what you're doing as a calling I mean in very different ways one reason that reporters and people in the military you think we would never get along but but the best military personnel and the best reporters both view what they do as a calling to make our country stronger and there's just real power in that and good luck to you thank you very much um two questions first is about structure so I'm just wondering you may address this Thomas earlier about the structure or national security we have both the situation with Congress authorizing and appropriate once per year or if if on average and then secondary we have an issue of the Frozen middle the situation of large numbers of people in our defense structure who don't want to change or adapt in a situation so that's the first one the secondary is about what about engaging with soft power appreciating the value of the state department the CDC NIH and all these organizations that I think they could have caught covet before became a problem so what about approaching that instead of like worrying about the dangers but putting the roast the threat itself so both are great questions and they're both answered in the book so thank you for asking um second question first we are absolute Believers in soft power we don't really use that phrase per se but one of our our interviews is again with a former Defense secretary who was a sovietologist and he bemoans the fact that of all the tools no longer in our Arsenal is a strong United States information agency I mean Lisa and I were in Moscow when people used to string wire all the way around their Apartments to make an antenna big enough to pick up voice of America Radio free Europe yes they listen for the Jazz and the rock and roll but they got real news and this country could puncture the Iron Curtain with fact-based news that way and there's nothing like that today to pierce Putin's electronic Iron Curtain so we are absolute Believers in all of the different aspects of government being brought together and not just things that blow up and kill people and as far as the structure I know Andy has thoughts on budgets and stuff too partisanship you know this country is not strong if it's broke and this country is not strong if it can't work together so these you know these year by year spending plans and all it's just it's really really deep stabilizing but I'm just going to make one point about what I think is a very important issue about budgeting and an observation we make is it's I it's unfortunate that Congress and playing its oversight roles too often replicates the stove pipes that are the institutions themselves you'll see in our depiction here we're talking about building scaffolding creating the horizontal pieces that will connect these institutions and that's a really very important role for Congress so if I'm looking for the kind of Reform we're talking about the modern version of the National Security Act I want to look very seriously at Congress and its roles both authorizer and appropriator because that's the place where some of these connections can be done this connective tissue can be drawn there and then we want to see it replicated across these institutions so I think you're really wise to be focused on that thank you all right a question for you so I'm coming at this from a little bit more of kind of the business perspective but you talk about the machine being broken and sort of the misappropriation of you know a trillion dollars of federal budget what role do you think like the defense Contracting Community takes in that right so I don't know what percentage of the one trillion dollar budget goes to companies like Raytheon and Lockheed and stuff like that but I gotta imagine it's a pretty significant amount these guys are all generating 10 20 you know profit margins so think of that as a tax on this money and then beyond that they've got kind of perverse incentives to continue pushing products that we may not necessarily need but that they're generating profit on so how do you guys think about that and you know any proposed solutions to that that kind of issue uh I'm gonna start first with the the question about the private sector and defense industry in particular it's part of the slowness that we see in this by the way I no problem with uh industry earning reasonable margins on their work no problem with it all but it's it's it's there's a lethargy that's in this and it's crowding out some of the new ideas that are coming from other parts of the private sector and this is the part I think that worries me and and importantly worries the people that are running the Pentagon now not just this Administration but the prior one and those before it they talk about this notion of the Valley of Death that's where new ideas are coming up very promising things but it takes a lot of money to get those across sort of from initial development to actual production and all the while there are very big important parts of Defense industry they're good at this but they're slow at it and they want control of it you know a good example for us right now is the F-35 this is the latest fighter that's being fielded right now that plane was developed almost 35 years ago 35 years ago um it's it's being fielded in significant numbers right now but this country was able to develop and field aircraft in five seven ten years in the 50s and 60s 50s and 60s now they were less complicated we know that for sure they were never intended to last as long as current aircraft do but this is an illustration of the of some of the problem that we have when it takes 35 years to field a new aircraft and as Tom points out in in midst of that cycle you know some of our competitors are putting out very good technology that are competing very effectively with us so if you're going to fix the system you're going to fix defense industry as well as fixing you know the the federal bureau Federal institutions that we're talking about in Congress there's a whole of these pieces are going to have to be looked at really carefully one of the cabinet members now retired through interviewed made the point that again it's about leadership and too many people in government can say no and not enough can say yes an example of that is the the mine resistant vehicle that was fielded in Iraq and Afghanistan when roadside bombs were maiming and killing Americans at an absolute unacceptable rate The Individual Services didn't want to pull their money out to do it industry wasn't really into it they didn't think it was a long-term investment but one defense secretary said the lives of these troops the lives of these soldiers Marines Airmen Etc is more important than your service parochial industry or Congressional interests one defense secretary drove that billions of dollars and saved lives and so it really is about leadership and it's about having the people in the jobs who know when to say yes and not just a lot of people who can take the easy route and say no maybe a quick follow-up to that so if you think about the pie chart of government spend right and you talked about this at the earlier uh the beginning of this about how you know Wars are not going to be fought with bombs and you know ballistics anymore if you sort of in your ideal world if you think about the pie chart of the things that you talk about cyber security uh Health defense what's kind of your ideal split of where where we should be allocating funds right I would say that we're probably over indexed to um you know Battlefield mechanisms right now right so I'm curious what your guys thoughts are on where we should be spending the money it's a great question and not being a numbers guy I'm not going to give you a direct answer but I'll give you kind of a conceptual framework for it remember when that gas pipeline company got hacked a couple years ago right it's a terrible crisis you know fuel at the pump went up dollars and all that sort of stuff um if memory serves um they did not reach out for government assistance right right away they were concerned about you know winning their books shareholder value all that sort of stuff we have to have new tools and protections in place so that the private sector when it has these problems can open up to the government and vice versa so I can't tell you where the pie chart comes down it has to be a real look at your question to say how does the government and Private Industry work together more effectively I've looked at the numbers a little bit more over time I don't think we're talking about moving double digits of in percentages to fix some of these problems I think we can be seriously talking about single digits of movement of the overall Pi the trillion and a quarter we're spending uh you know if you had three four five percent of that to deal with some of these new problems you could make enormous that way uh you know we talk about pandemic preparedness stockpiling basic supplies this doesn't require enormous expenditures to have some of that in place uh fortunately one of the outgrowths of the post-9 11 reforms uh was the fact that we did get started on on the research on new vaccines the the MRNA vaccine would not have been with us had it not been for the research it was underway after 9 11 and some of the authorities that were given that were put into law at that time uh it doesn't take you know hundreds of billions of dollars to keep some of those things active and Alive we want to do that in a serious way right now the new issue that a lot of people are worried about and we know the folks in the White House are deeply worried about generative AI how we're going to put guard rails around that how we're going to think about that functioning and so forth that's come on us very quickly again you know the government expenditures don't have to be huge and the key drivers here are the private sector right now there's about a half dozen firms that have the wherewithal to be able to do this at any kind of a scale this is going to require a public and private partnership but again as a former National Security advisor uh sat and talked to us at length we have to have the the wherewithal so that we can cooperate with these institutions so they can signal to the federal government when problems are arising and now not fear that they're going to be paying a huge penalty when they're when they're revealing debt or revealing about the things about themselves when they're motivated by basic National Security now nobody's here to suggest that we want to turn a blind eye to fraud or abuse or or or blatant violations of the law but we do need to have sort of a more Cooperative structure here that's going to work but to your point I think single digits in that larger expenditure can make a huge difference and if I could just foot stop something Andy said it was a horrible uh you know period pandemic millions of people a million people died the economy overturned um but it was a proof of concept a tragic one for our idea of the standing Joint Task Force the government stumbled badly when covet came we don't need to revisit that history but think about operation warp speed brought together the best Minds in government best Minds in business best Minds in science it gave him the money gave him the legal protections and guess what the vaccine was produced in record time so we need to use that concept on all the other challenges that we're talking about that was from a standing start let's get ready so we don't have to do that stumble at the Starting Gate thank you would you please identify yourself um so part of the story of this National Security machine is how it's covered right and you guys can speak with two very different perspectives on that and my question has two parts first you know how how has it been covered I think a lot of people have this somewhat naive notion that you know reporters like Tom and I were Walk The Pentagon Halls waiting for leaks to be dropped in our lap and officials like Andy was you know is looking for ways to leak you know and or not yeah and we all know that that's really not the way it is you know so give a little more sophisticated view of how the process works and secondly how could it be better because we also all know that as good as the coverage has been at times it's also been hasn't served the nation well at other times and and we have just a few more minutes yeah we could do a whole hour on that Brad thanks for the question and you're an expert yourself you can answer this for us I mean it's true I I never liked the phrase leaks because it makes it sound like a reporter is at his or her desk feed up smoking a cigar drinking Scotch phone rings uh Mr secretary what's my news today it just doesn't work that way if only it did it does happen from time to time if government officials want to get a story out set an agenda but more than a leak it's really a puncture you know reporters Walk The Halls talk to people some of the coverage I'm proudest of my entire career were a series of stories written with my colleagues Eric Schmidt and David Sanger uh in 2002 uh the Bush Administration was you know taking its focus away from Afghanistan there was talk about Iraq but everybody top to bottom said no there's off ramps we're not going to invade Iraq not a chance will we begin reporting that no kidding the Bush Administration is planning for for war and I've always believed that there's no more Grim decision that a democracy makes than going to war and it was our obligation to tell the American people this is what the government's planning in your name and we wrote a series of stories starting in May of 2002 almost a full year before the invasion that laid out the planning we weren't printing where the troop ships are going to sail or what the plans are we weren't going to risk lives but we thought it was really really important to tell the country what's going to happen and it happened exactly as we said so how do we make the coverage better one of the catastrophes of the internet is the hollowing out of the American Media I mean my alma mater the Chicago Tribune had bureaus in Moscow and all around the world and now it's a very much smaller organization so there is this darwinian culling going on there's only a few newspapers that really cover the world seriously and that's just not right I'm a Believer in competition because the more reporters you have out there the more good stories you're going to get so we have to support the mainstream media that's doing a good job please subscribe to your local newspapers please subscribe to to the big ones and these reporters have to be protected it's really really hard uh when our government declares war on the media I mean my five years in Moscow my alma mater the Chicago Tribune and my reporting I was labeled An Enemy of the State just before Lisa and I came home it was very very hard on me to be at the New York Times and have my own government label the news media an enemy of the people that's just wrong and again there's always going to be a rub between the government and National Security coverage but we're in this together to make our country better there has to be better Rules of Engagement my own experience oh let's see my own experience is that the best reporting is really one of collaboration that is reporters and officials in and out of government are interacting this is an ongoing Dialogue on critical issues uh when I got to know you and I got to know Tom and others uh often when we were sitting down to talk about problems you came in so we're well prepared that I knew you knew the answers to most of the questions you were asking before we ever sat down you were there to confirm your answers but you were you were very very well uh you you understood the institutions you were covering you understood the issues you were writing about um and that sense of collaboration you would travel with officials you'd talk to them um and you're communicating with a larger with uh you know with your readership but you're really communicating with the American population when you're doing it when the reporting is best I think and when that when the coverage is best it is it represents some of that yes there's occasional leaks and so forth but more often there are deliberate acts to share information to create awareness to create understanding um and you know I think that's really important to how the democracy has to function uh you know an electorate that is not aware uh does not have an understanding does not have an appreciation of the kind of issues that we're talking about and these are these are issues that are so highly consequential for all of us that we need that we need that collaboration so from my standpoint in the the vantage point I had both when I was in the defense department but even at the time I've had since a brand I think it's it's such an important role and I know that some of Tom's colleagues of the New York Times I used to appreciate it when they were they had a story almost finished and we'd get a call and say can we come over and talk to you about this because we just want to make sure that we've got some of these points right the folks the the top reporters in the National Security space they know what they're talking about and they're really really good so just a final thought I've always sort of believed that the relationship between the media and the US government is like a marriage now it's a dysfunctional marriage but we stay together for the kids right and and the kids are all of you because we have to make this relationship work um anybody else I know we're just about about out of time but I thought I'd ask uh a question about the future um first of all Tom and Eddie thank you for the book congratulations again I'm looking forward to reading it um the question about the future kind of actually relates back to something one of the first uh people up here asked a question about uh careers in the defense industry um a little bit of context for the audience I mean I've I've had a long career 20 years in the private sector in 20 years at the periphery of uh defense and National Security area and I had the privilege of of working with some of the most dedicated and intelligent and uh well-intentioned professionals uh Andy you're one of those people but listening to your remarks today I I was thinking what does the future look like what's your assessment of the future because one of you said a very truthfully I mean very uh um one of you said these machines you're talking about both the intelligence machine and the action machine it's really people we're talking about so my question is what's your assessment and what's your what's whether it's in the book or whether you have your discussions about the the future Generations uh is the educational system generating the kinds of people with the enthusiasm the intelligence the backward background and the dedication to work some of the problems that you're you're astutely pointing out that we need and also is the system is defense industry the defense establishment the intelligence side and the action side actually recruiting people incentivizing people increasing the talent pool what's your what's your view about about that future I think you raise a profoundly important question here people we've all met over our careers have dedicated themselves to their country and to these causes they've they've Tom's reference earlier the advice think of this as a calling you know the best Minds that uh that I've seen over my career have viewed it viewed this as a calling and they are some amazing talent that have been part of this National Security establishment uh you know I think of the the likes of Harold Brown a genius the man graduated from Colombia I think it's 16 or in a PhD at 21 was the Secretary of the Air Force at 32 or 33 years old and continue to serve the balance of his life I think the talent is in this country is as good as it has ever been I do worry a bit of whether that a talents attracted to service in the same way that the likes of a Harold Brown was you know do they feel motivated do they feel committed to a larger cause in the same way uh and that's a concern because we need that Talent we need every bit of it to focus these problems that we're outlining in this book are as every bit as hard as the problems of the early days of the nuclear age and you know serious people focused on that then and thankfully they got it enough right that we've avoided nuclear war for 75 years but you think about the the the the the the um you know the unknowns that surround generative Ai and what that could be bringing this feels to me an awful lot like the beginning of the nuclear era we're going to need the best talent that's available to be working on those problems so you know the education system I think we could have a separate discussion of whether it's producing you know if it's if it's producing you know enough people with backgrounds and Science and Technology and and so forth the so-called you know the the stem areas um I think there's plenty of good talent my biggest concern is whether that talent's moved and motivated and feels that calling to put its skills and its brain power on the kind of problems that we're talking about here because we need it thank you [Applause] so thank you Tom and

Channel: Politics and Prose

Views: 2,450

Keywords: books, book, politics and prose, bookstore, author, author talk, author video, book talk, new books, book store, indie bookstore, independent bookstore, book tube, booktube, reading vlog, annotating books, book annotations, reading vlogs, journalism, journalist, Washington DC, DC, bookworms, bookworm, book worm, book worms, book chat, @politicsprose

Id: UWBAPOQeD0E

Length: 61min 32sec (3692 seconds)

Published: Sun May 14 2023