Joe Felter on Countering China in Their Own Backyard

[Music] a fellow at the hoover institution joseph felter served as an officer in the united states army special forces where he saw combat in panama iraq and afghanistan during the trump administration dr felter served as deputy secretary of defense for south asia southeast asia and oceania he earned his undergraduate degree at west point and his doctorate in political science here at stanford joe welcome thanks peter great to be here joe two questions two quotations rather quotation 1 admiral philip davidson commander of the united states indo-pacific command testifying before the senate last month quote taiwan is clearly one of china's ambitions and i think the threat is manifest during this decade in fact in the next six years close quote quotation two general mark miley is it miley or millie miley millie milly nilly general mark milley thank you chairman of the joint chiefs of staff testifying on capitol hill in june when asked about the danger from china to taiwan quote i think the probability is low in the immediate near-term future close quote the threat is manifest the threat is low joe who's right and why do two men sitting right on top the united states command structure take different views it's it's a it's a great question peter and then general millie still are serving uh chairman of joint chiefs and uh i'm with my military background i'm maybe reluctant to question those decisions but but i actually going to lean towards admiral davidson uh we recently stepped down as our our commander of indo-pacific command i think that the threat is manifest they're they're you cannot overstate the importance of re uh taking or for reunifying taiwan uh it is to china and the ccp and xi jinping himself so many would argue i would agree that that china hasn't invaded taiwan because it doesn't think it can do so successfully but but you know decades of military modernization uh you know increasing defense budgets they're improving their power projection capability and they're getting the point where they think they might be able to get away with it and someone argued that that they may even see this as a fading opportunity which raises the risk even more but um that is a huge flash point uh we we've got to make sure that china doesn't calculate that it can re retake taiwan and acceptable costs and there's a lot of ways we can do that i personally think the best way to do that is to uh let's build time on its own capacities we certainly need to maintain our commitment to it if you're familiar with our 1979 taiwan relations act where we are committed to taiwan's defense need to keep doing that but the best way for taiwan is to make sure that they build their own capabilities uh use their defender their defensive advantages to keep keep china's calculus that they can't do it successfully all right we'll we'll come back to taiwan by the way that's very graceful and i can see i'm dealing with a man who believes that you may retire but you never make but you may never take off your uniform all right that means you're going to say you're going to be guarded in what you all right well we'll deal with this joe fine i get it china from an article that you co-authored in foreign affairs quote china is the only challenger that could undermine the american way of life undermining the american way of life if china succeeds how does life change what will it feel like and look like in other words what's at stake here yeah well you maybe should ask the folks in uh hong kong you know their experience with uh getting a little bit closer to china um we clearly china has a very different vision for the future um i think encouraging division that the united states has is one that's shared and embraced by other countries around the world certainly in the region you know a free and open region a rules-based order i try to see things very differently um they they definitely have a deliberate plan to become a regional global power and they're using a you know other instance of their national power and a whole government approach to to achieve that vision xi jinping is basically the emperor for life now and he is personally committed to this national rejuvenation uh he he his vision for china there's a speech he just gave uh i think last thursday just talked about this vision for you know the the the new china and how it's gonna you know be that be in the lead it's it's gonna have a world-class military i mean they're out there they're in it to win it and they're they're doing all they can to to to basically pursue their vision which is entirely at odds with with the vision not just the united states this is this is the vision of everyone who wants this rules-based order that the united states invested so much blood and treasure to establish after world war ii to continue joe joe i want to i want to stay with the point a little bit of how different how life would be different for us so the parallel would be britain in the 19th century it runs the world and by the mid-20th century it seeds that position to us and what happens for british people well as they give up the imperial possessions the colonies they all have to go to work in the city of london they don't get to go run india that changes but living standards continue to rise they continue to run their own country they go to university life continues to be good and in fact on material measures improves in britain even after they lose primacy in the world we lose to the chinese so what what's if you're explaining to you have three young men you have three boys two of whom are in college right now how do you tell them life will be different in 20 years if we fail in standing up to china yeah you know again not to overstate the the example of of hong kong but this notion of you know two systems i just maybe that's a bit extreme but things are going to change drastically you know the british analogy i don't think it's gonna gonna hold hold here i mean china's uh you know look how they treat their own people look at the uyghurs look at the internal repression um how can we expect any country be expected to be trying to treat them better than their own people and that's that's certainly a stark reminder of what what the future will look like just look inside china look at the look what's happening right now um atrocities you know genocide some some would argue but certainly the internal repression you know in yeah i would tell my my three boys and you know one one of them is going to be serving and maybe on the tip of the spear in this competition and hopefully it won't turn into a conflict but very different future that china sees for itself it wants to be a dominant power and uh it's uh it won't be the benevolent uh dictator that that we might hope i think uh they've proven it time and time again again look at hong kong look at the uyghurs look at its own the repression of its own people that's that's the that's the ghost of christmas future that that we we got to be anticipate and hopefully avoid all right we should know there is no there is no way of being committed to a struggle in any more direct and dramatic way than to have a son following you at west point so we should note that there you have a boy there this is not a joke this is not a game we're not playing intellectual games here for the felter family joe one more quotation here the late economist and for foreign policy analyst and hoover fellow harry rowan he's writing in 1996 when will china become a democracy the answer is around the year 2015. this prediction is based on china's steady and impressive economic growth which in turn fits the pattern of the way in which freedom has grown in asia and elsewhere in the world south korea gets rich becomes a democracy taiwan gets rich becomes a democracy so harry rowan was making the very reasonable point that everyone in the united states to which everyone in the united states subscribed i was in the reagan administration it started then china will get rich and they'll become if not a full-fledged democracy harry believed they would become a full-fledged democracy they'll become easier for us to deal with how could we have spent more than three decades so totally mistaken uh peter i don't know i and i was in graduate school like my academic advisor was was ash carter and i think the uh the dean of the campaign secretary of defenses he would become yes and uh i think joe and i was that our dean at the kennedy school at the time um and the saying then was don't treat china like an enemy or it'll become one it's it's time to and exactly what harry rowan who's you know brilliant economist you know it's it's china is an outlier the historical record yes as countries economies grow good things happen they become more you know internal reforms they become more liberal they become more responsible members of the international community of course that's what we thought that that was what we thought china's road was going to be certainly didn't turn out that way um you know encouraging i think the last administration's national security strategy finally you know put a nail on the coffin of a responsible stakeholder theory and and called out china for what they are not what we want them to be or what we hope they will be and that that is that you know there are competitors let's hope we don't get in the conflict but we are in long-term competition with china and that's the reality and it's there's more continuity than difference you saw the internet the international security strategy from this administration very much along with all those along the same lines but my my take uh peter is it we've just probably got the timing wrong you know we thought this these reforms might come in decades it may take a century or more um i still maybe we can talk about this in another question what about the argument i was talking last what was it a week ago or 10 days ago to amy ziegart and amy said they're communists that's the difference yeah the south koreans had an authoritarian regime the taiwanese it's a complicated story but when chiang kai-shek moves over to taiwan from the mainland it's a pretty tough regime they were authoritarian but the mainland is communist and that's the difference and that's what we failed to take seriously do you buy that i think the ideological component is significant um you know we're all over here remember 1989 that was a big surprise when the law fell so it's not like communism can't erode from within and collapse but but yeah i think you make a great point peter that the ideological component in china is is significant um and on to i want to come to the quad in just a moment including an explanation of what an earth the quad is but first one of the one countries so large and so significant it deserves to be talked about apart from the quad and that of course is india from an article that you joe co-authored in a publication called defense one quote india is a long-time partner of russia now moving in the right direction in other words toward us but india's deep reliance on russia for its strategic arsenal and the leverage moscow maintains given india's need for everything from spare parts and maintenance to technical assistance will persist for some time this will only diminish with positive us engagement okay if i read that there's a serious hangover or lag effect from all those decades when indira gandhi was a supposedly non-aligned leader but in fact she was close to moscow and we're gonna have to work the relationship here's the question what can we give india that they can't get from russia uh i think a partnership that has a shared vision for the future that you know i think russia's russia is is not at the kind of part that's going to get you where you want to go in the next century um but more specifically you know let's look at defense cooperation which is an area that i am you know more experienced and we have the best technology um you need to buy u.s defense platforms you can have the very best technology and you're going to be interoperable with all the other great powers in the region that you want to work with you know we can talk about that when we talk about the quad but i would say the us offers india we are natural partners you know the world's oldest democracy and the world's largest democracy and we have aligned interests for you know we want to see this region stay free and open the rules based order persists russia doesn't offer them anything like that you know they've got them they can because they they're they're dependent on them for so many spare parts and and some of their legacy systems they can have some leverage but hopefully that's gonna they're gonna wean themselves from that and encourage the indians starting to turn away from russia um they went from zero to um let's say 20 billion dollars from 2008 to president as far as u.s military sales um so the short answer question peter we we are the the natural partner that wants to see indy become a a powerful regional power uh a net security provider um and that's the interest of india us and all the countries in the region that want to see this rules-based order enforced and persist one more i'm going to be skeptical on the um allies i'm not i i i don't want to be yoked to the memory of our former chief executive donald trump but when he bristled at the way the allies took us for a ride whenever they could he was on to some important piece of recent history okay so india if you're indian if you're running india he said wait a minute let's let the america of course we can play off russia against the united states let's well if the if the us is better technology we'll drive the prices down see if we can get can't get some technology on the cheap and so fine but really time is on our side the americans think that our concern with the chinese is going to drive us running into the american embrace eh not so on un projections the population of china will have by the end of this century from 1.4 billion to 700 million whereas the population of india will remain about level at about 1.3 billion china is big it's huffing and puffing right now we indians who think in terms of decades and centuries will play the americans off against the russians and sit tight why wouldn't that be a reasonable way for them to to approach the problem sit it out time is on their side well you do make a good point peter emphasize a bit more i mean we can't overstate just how sensitive the indians are to their own you know sovereignty uh we they're not looking for a new ally um but but you know i taught international relations uh west point and stanford when countries cooperate when their interests are aligned and we certainly have aligned interests right now with respect to china and many other areas so um i think you're paying a little more skeptical picture that i think is accurate i think india again there's a lot of cultural closeness again the uh the fact that these are two large democracies uh that share so many uh common interests and common values yeah i think that there is going to be a close relationship with the indian us you know based on on many things so i don't think it's a waiting let's not wait the u.s out all right the quad established in 2007 by japanese prime minister shinzo abe the quadrilateral security dialogue much better just to call it the quad represents ongoing talks a kind of loose alliance as i understand it but you're about to fill me in on this among the united states japan australia and again india um is this a new nato should it be um so peter i would say no um this is this is not designed uh the quad is it's it's an informal grouping uh the region's four largest uh democracies coming together to cooperate on areas of mutual interest um it's it's designed to complement and strengthen existing institutions like like asean or other regional institutions that not replace them you know i think calling in an asian nato has a bad connotation because certainly these are all independent countries uh you we talked about india just now that they're not going to sign up to be part of anyone's alliance to to be clear um but you know encouragingly in the last several months especially with you know china being the driver of this that they are recognizing that that their their interests are better served by by working with these these large democracies uh capable democracies in the region um and also i think that the grouping can provide leadership it's not just the quad working alone it's it's it's the quad working with what we call like the plus countries or the you know provide providing the leadership that's needed to to advance uh common interests in the region so there's huge potential huge on leverage potential uh encouraging this the last administration you have to give them credit for reviving the quad and and give this administration some encouraging indicators that they're going to keep it going because president biden had at a virtual leader summit soon after he took office and there's there's another one scheduled in person i believe in the fall so great great potential for the quad to be a great uh informal if not becoming more formal mechanism to advance the common interest that we have okay so you you've taught you've taught international relations at west point and stanford could you treat me as one of your slower students you're you're assuming that i mean you so of course it's not going to be another nato but why not nato worked wonderfully for four and a half decades why not take the quad india japan australia add in south korea add in vietnam we have a tricky history with vietnam but it's a nation of 60 million people that really dislikes china and just go right ahead and put it in black and white and have everybody sign a mutual defense accord if china attacks one we all respond why why is that i mean i can tell you as a professional think that's a borderline absurd but i as a layman don't see why help me and it's not absurd peter actually yeah oh i i talked to admiral harry harris the former commander of the indo-pacific commander and are more recently ambassador south korea he was very much in favor of a more um you know more formal alliance more formal and bringing in south korea and then and boy he's got an extraordinary amount of experience uh um i don't want to overstate the the concerns of countries like india and certainly given all the the progress they've made and the movement they've made interesting this last year but i i do think maybe uh if you want to call it de facto versus uh uh du jour alliance i think we're gonna have some reluctance and remember nato very much was a security focused alliance i think the quad's potential is going to be uh manifested across many uh instruments of national power yeah and certainly the economic component uh commercial component it's uh i think it's gonna be able to do more and and again if you're if you're an asean country you feel a bit like hey what about asean centrality is this trying to supplant the uh the existing regional security institutions that we have already and where does that leave us so i think the quad can be very effective without becoming a formal alliance okay so here's here's another i'm i'm pursuing my own education now joe and you're not the slow student of the class peter you're getting your points you had slower than me you poor that sounds like trouble in that classroom so the way you're talking about this one thing i'm sort of trying to get a feel for here at the end of the second world war the red army was in eastern europe and the soviet union represented an immediate so it could be argued so it was very reasonable to argue an immediate military threat hence putting together a military alliance people went along with that right the leaders of foreign countries went along with that so what i'm gathering from the way you're talking yourself and the way you're describing the leaders of these asian countries indo-asian countries to include india they don't see china as in taiwan perhaps aside from taiwan they don't see and you don't see china as a significant military threat is that right or have i got that wrong please peter i absolutely see them as a potentially as the most serious military threat truly i would say the countries in the region they're certainly by geography alone and many other factors they have to maintain a a certain relationship with china and i don't think it's it's easier for us you know hiding behind the pacific ocean to maybe uh sign a pact uh but but if you're if you if you're a country that borders china i mean india actually has a long border it's the only quad country that's a border with china and so they're going to look at things a little bit differently so it's um i think countries are going to have the flexibility to to define their own relationship with china uh and and i think uh a formal military style alliance with the quad maybe something that they they see is uh detracting from that that flexibility uh but certainly the interests have never been more aligned than ever to recognize china for what it truly is it's it's uh it's it's it's in it to win it it's out to undermine the sovereignty of any range of countries and we're seeing that playing out now in real time afghanistan this is you joe felter writing the texas national security review quote the united states must at some point deport depart from with afghanistan with over 2400 u.s service members killed many more wounded and nearly a trillion dollars spent to date close quote my question is this does the military-industrial complex of the united states of america to use eisenhower's phrase does it work does it merit the support of the american people 20 years in afghanistan a trillion dollars spent for nothing just nothing and now we have congresswoman luria saying wait a minute wait a minute davidson's goes before the senate and says taiwan's a problem millie goes before the senate and says taiwan isn't a problem jim mattis when he's secretary of defense issues a foreign a a strategic statement identifying china is the number one problem three years on the budget doesn't seem to reflect that who are these guys we spent 700 billion dollars a year they've given us a debacle in afghanistan and is according to congresswoman luria permitted our situation with regard to relative to china to erode rather than strengthen it so that's throwing way too much at you but at the same time it's just a question that's in the air on both sides both republicans and democrats why do these generals and admiral why should they command our respect we've had two decades at least of just drift now how do you answer that one joe how do you make an american taxpayer feel a little bit better about your colleagues in uniform well peter again the this civilian control of the military that the the the people calling the shots are happen to be wearing suits uh or or not uniforms um so certainly the men and women uh that really run the military um but it's a fair question and it's it's a bit personal for me peter i mean certainly have a lot of friends that um didn't make it back from the or are very very different now um and people i've served with and i've spent you know some time there um but let's not let's not forget 911 too and again it's that going in there we had a mission we understood why we were there um and the fact that we haven't had another catastrophic terrorist attack since then let's not ignore that um i'm not saying that's you know was was our presidential response for that but let's let's let's give some credit to to to the sacrifice that they made there um but but you're right i mean we we uh it's 20 years um i i personally think that a small presence there could have helped keep things together i think this is going to be viewed as a mistake to completely pull withdrawal altogether you know and i and i and i remember serving there you know under generals of crystal and then general petraeus and you know we still thought we could win we thought we could turn the tide we thought that maybe some something like the iraq surge of the 2008 we might might see back in afghanistan you know but at the end of the day uh you know i have a bit of a background in counterinsurgency maybe there's a longer answer to your question no go right ahead this is fascinating this is fascinating it's the end of the day you you you know saying you can't want it more than the afghans do um at the end of the council is about building the legitimacy of of the government and in afghanistan the central government you get out into the hinterlands kabul did not have a lot of legitimacy so we were you know often cases trying to prop up a government that was really not viewed as legitimate in the eyes of afghanistan so it's a very very tough tough challenge i would say from the counter on terrorism if we can narrow that down maybe a small force stay in there to help provide the the enablers the intelligence support and whatnot was probably worth it um and i do think that there's gonna be some horrific images here coming out in the next few months uh certainly the next year so just atrocities happen in afghanistan horrific things happen to women and it's i think we're going to regret leaving under the way we did um that said we didn't want to have a forever war of 100 000 plus people but um i think a a small presence you know to to advance our counterterrorism interests probably would have been effective we made some mistakes um clearly 20 years was too long and too much blood and treasure spent um but i do think we we uh we're going to regret pulling out as abruptly as we're doing right now okay so by the way if you want to joe you're so respectful of not of me incidentally but of absolutely of your former superiors in the chain of command and you're also being very respectful of political leaders so jim mattis in his book chaos when he writes about fallujah he writes about being given the order to take fallujah then the order to stand down then the order to take fallujah all of this coming from washington chains being yanked in every direction by people back in washington who really didn't jim would not put it this way but this is the way it reads in the book who really didn't quite appreciate what was going on or that every time they gave an order jim mattis stood young men up or he stood them back all right so if you would like to say that part of the problem in afghanistan and part of the problem in our slowness i want to come back to china again within months of becoming sectif jim mattis issues a new strategic document and names china as our number one competitor and here we are three budget cycles later and it's really hard to see any significant response in the pentagon budget so so you're telling me peter no no no it's not the guys in uniform it's the political system is that right that'd be a fair answer i mean i'm just interested uh your experience from where you sit what why what's going on here i mean our civil relations takes advice you know the president's going to listen to as chairman and but ultimately it is a you know a civilians are calling calling the big shots uh in these types of conflicts um but you know as we've seen in afghanistan you do take the advice of your senior military leaders seriously and that advice has very often been uh let's let's stay the course you know it's it's uh we we need to keep a presence there uh the mission continues um let me just point also you know george bush senior uh barack obama they all wanted to pivot to asia and or and focus on asia but because of the terrorism challenge they they weren't able to um i think you know this pivots asia that barack obama want to do he got mired back into the war on terror and wasn't able to to fully resource and pivot to asia i think you're exactly right peter we we talk a lot about making the indo-pacific theater at the priory theater you know i was just out in hawaii talking to the new uh into paycom commander just a couple weeks ago and uh he's just coming on board but you know i think he's also very concerned that hey if you're going to call this a priority let's resource it accordingly that way all right so back to our own armed forces for here's you again let me quote you this the problem of innovation this is joe felter writing and defense one quote rapid innovation in new technologies cyber ai autonomy access to space drones biotech are no longer being led by military and government labs but instead from come from commercial vendors many of them chinese close quote okay in the old cold war the pentagon funds the aerospace industry down in southern california and the innovation that the american economy throws off is capture is taking place within again to use eisenhower's faith it's taking place inside the military-industrial complex and now it's not joe felter says no it's kids here in silicon valley and the nature of the problem is i see it redefine it if you'd like to runs as follows the chinese outnumber us and they will always outnumber us they spend a little less than we do now on military spending but that may change at any moment and their economy is already by some measures as big as ours our only hope for a sustainable edge is innovation and now innovation is really tricky so i have you've been out here in silicon valley for some years now you've heard what i've heard the cia has its venture fund far there's d i d-i-u-x or d-u-i-x i hear him and you get off the record and and uh have a glass of wine over a dinner and the entrepreneurs say oh yeah easy money they invest in the wrong ways and at high valuations they're the government of course they're going to be slow they're going to be behind the curve so how do we how do we how does the united states how does the pentagon how do we incorporate innovation fast enough before it's stolen peter you you nailed uh the essence of of a challenge here and you mentioned that we're still configured to fight and win the cold war as far as our you know acquisition and requirement system and and we've got a system that's designed to build incrementally better aircraft carriers submarines fighters you know every decade or two and that that got us through uh it's good at that it actually succeeds at that right and peter think about our our military technology you know of the last century was developed in government labs and our best and brightest out of stanford and mit harvard they wanted to go work for the nsa and work for you know um you know government primes or military prize but but now our best and you know you mentioned our the military relevant technology now is is being developed in the commercial sector and and critically that means that developments and advances in these technologies are driven by consumer demand not not you know not by government directive so it's turned on its head now um and so we've got to find ways to to identify deploy and speed and scale these technologies and and and it's not building a better aircraft carrier every decade it's getting you know last week's software update you know better faster quicker it's looking at you know new conflict domains of cyber and space so but but you nailed it peter but but there's an upside there i do think that that innovation that we see here in silicon valley elsewhere that's hard to steal you know they're doing china's doing very well at stealing it but uh part of the actual innovation spirit i think that's one of the strengths and comparative advantage the us is going to maintain for some time okay so i have a reform to suggest joe i have two reforms to suggest this was me as the layman thinking how can i get extra credit in joe's class and here's one reform you you reduce the number of jobs the pentagon does by outsourcing a lot of it we've already seen this palantir arises why because it's better at crunching data than the pentagon and the intelligence agencies elon musk it turns out elon musk is better at putting up satellites if if we get to mars it'll because elon musk gets us there or jeff bezos gets us there and we should be thrilled with this if there are functions that can be performed better in the private sector even if they bear directly on national security let's go for it let's use that american strength scale down the pentagon we need fewer officers trying to design the next aircraft carrier and more officers identifying problems and then getting on airplanes and spending a month or two at a time out here in silicon valley finding kids who can solve those problems pretty brilliant wouldn't you say joe sure no does that does something like that sound like a workable idea or is it already happening probably i was just saying let's give a little credit i think we do recognize this challenge and there are efforts to find more ways more pathways for for individuals so there's even talk of you know direct commissioning you know entrepreneurs successful entrepreneurs and giving giving them a chance to serve you mentioned diu formerly diux right mike brown the director there is is a visionary just doing a great job his previous director is actually hoover visiting fellow raj shah whom you know um but we're trying and we you know diu's a great example uh ash carter put it in place uh jim mattis kept it going and it's flourishing uh that the services are developing their own innovation hubs you've got afworks uh for the air force software special operations naval ex for the navy so i think there's a real recognition that that you know the the military relevant technology it's it's out in the private sector and we've got to find ways to to identify it and and deployed at scale um but how we're going to i mean the military you know i think there's recognition we're going to see some changes you're seeing some you call it outsourcing but i just think there's a recognition that we're going to find these technologies in the private sector you know shame on us if we don't find ways to do it fast and and at scale and speed okay one more reform i'd like to try on you or at least one new way i grant by the way you were you were just very polite even with me at that in that last question so a lot of this stuff is already going on and my bright ideas come up with an idea that other people have had years ago okay i thank you but here's here's another idea punitive expeditions gil barn dollar writing recently in the wall street journal quote america cannot afford to garrison afghanistan or other failed states endlessly it can afford to inflict short and sharp punishment punitive expeditions brief high-intensity campaigns to punish sponsors of terrorism and deter others are overdue for a return to america's strategic toolkit close quote joe let's just drop this idea of creating democracies around the world it really really doesn't seem to work very well the next time a taliban gives comfort to terrorists who attack us let's do what we did to the taliban first in those initial weeks which is to destroy their regime and kill many of those leaders but then let's come home that's the idea that we don't think in terms of missionary operations we think in terms of quick unambiguous punishments peter i think starting hindsight that that's certainly uh an approach that you know more and more people would have realized it was was more appropriate but let me just make a point in how where we are in afghanistan you know when we pull out our last service member in the next coming weeks think about how limited we are to to to exert that that that kind of sharp short uh discrete uh uh interventions you know we we we are losing um our presence there that means we're gonna have to launch from offshore which is very very difficult very very expensive we've lost the support of our allies the allies had twice as many soldiers serving here recently than the united states we're losing all of our allied support we're losing our ability to collect intelligence which you really need presence to collect intelligence we're losing our ability to provide air support you know responsive air support so i agree with you peter i agree with that we want to maintain that capability to have those sharp sharp discrete targeted interventions but if we have no one on the ground which we're going to have very soon we've greatly limited it and it's it's we've greatly increased the cost of having those now we have to float an aircraft carrier out somewhere to project power or launch you know and refuel an air from from a base you know in somewhere else in the middle east so so i agree we need to maintain that capability and we are losing that capacity to do so or making it much much more expensive and much more u.s centric and not shared by not sharing that burden with allies and partners by by leaving afghanistan um so i think i agree with what you said i think that all the more reason to point to that i think the the mistake is going to be to lose that that small even that small presence that that we have right now in afghanistan joe last question you have sons you have kids you teach at here at stanford you've taught at the united states military academy a senior comes to you and says dr felter i've got two choices the united states military listen the army maybe the kid is ambitious maybe special forces in the army or i've got an offer here from facebook or twitter or google tech what do you advise him or her well thanks thanks peter i've had the great privilege of mentoring a lot of students here at stanford that have an interest in the military you know it's it you really got to get to know that that young man or woman and really get a sense for you know is is military service you know what what he or she thinks it's going to be and is it right right for them um my experience if they got anything to do it um i find it i encourage them to explore options to do it you know and there's a range of ways to do that some you can go down an extreme route of special forces or there's other options but you really have to get you know it's an individual decision fortunately we're in a country that has um you know uh volunteer military so so we're we don't put the the people don't want to be there in the military um but it's really an individual decision um you know i've had uh parents of of students contacting me distraught that i'm i'm trying to push their children into the military but but i think it's just empowering them to to realize you know the goals that they have you know you you feel no impulse to say listen go to work for google no armed forces are a mess it's not like when i went to west point it's a mess go to work for you feel no impulse to say that know i think it's not just me i think it's public service and there's lots of ways to pursue public service you know our own george schultz you know five cabinet posts you know you ask him to introduce himself he's he'll say george schultz marine and there's there's no greater act of public service than laying down your life for your country so but there's other ways to serve and i wouldn't let me get back to your question peter before i for we have to end um go to google i mean they're changing the world you know stanford students in our tech companies are changing the world but but i would i would say hey go there but remember how you remember the the the the privileges that you have as an american that the freedoms um the opportunities that you have as an american that helps a company like google flourish and it helps you get to a place like google and you know if you're there for a while and you're in a leadership position maybe maybe consider that when when your country needs some kind of technology like like we've seen in the past and think about that that hey maybe it's not uh so bad to support your country with some technology or or maybe like many people we we see here in silicon valley peter in this area maybe you get get some means and you're in a position to support some causes you know you know so support some causes that you think strengthen america you know and i i know this is a friendly crowd here but i know we have some folks that support the hoover institution listening and i'm a little biased but i think that's a great example you know you know fund some of the thinking that helps us keep keep a strong country and and make sure that um you know those ideas that define this grace three for free for society or flourish so so the story answered questions hey it's an individual some people are cut out for the military i encourage them to do it because you get to be my age if you didn't join there's always that gosh i should have coulda would and you don't want to be that person even if you served for a few years other ways to do public service get get into public you know to politics long there's so many ways to serve but hey do you want to do any of that go to google do well help help you know be a patriot in those organizations and ensure that the technologies you know maybe if your country calls on those technologies do it you know countries like companies like pounder certainly do it but but can't say the same for for some others and also if you get to a point where you can support good causes be a patriot and and how you support those causes and you can you can make a difference you can have impact you know not necessarily by putting on the uniform there's so many other ways to do it and we we see it so many times here at stanford the the impact these students have is just extraordinary so uh um dr joseph felter formerly of the united states army now the hoover institution thank you thank you peter it's great great to spend some time with you for uncommon knowledge the hoover institution and fox nation i'm peter robinson [Music] you

Channel: Hoover Institution

Views: 104,667

Rating: 4.5615306 out of 5

Keywords: Uncommon Knowledge, Peter Robinson, Hoover Institute, Hoover Institution, China, Taiwan, National Security

Id: bXO_0eqV7ec

Length: 42min 2sec (2522 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 04 2021