Carrie this is a talk called well don't you team up in her class bicker but I think your start well welcome to all of you to this lecture featuring our visiting William assignment professor Victor Davis Hanson so really like to have a victor with us again this year this is the second time to be with us as the assignment professor and we like for that to become heaven maybe in a more permanent way I told we had Victor Davis Hanson he is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and we had another senior fellow from the Hoover Institution here yesterday secretary Condoleezza Rice who spoke at the law school in the afternoon calling driving as a visiting professor was the it is a interlocked at or a good word for colleague coming was the deputy assistant secretary of state under Condoleezza Rice as teaching for us this semester and then on the phone yesterday I had a good conversation with another senior fellow Michael pasca who is going to be our graduation speaker this semester one of our graduates was with Condoleezza Rice yesterday miss Hogan who is one of our graduates of the school policy and as a research fellow a research assistant to Secretary Rice another one of our graduates of the School of Public Policy is Assistant Director of the Hoover Institution Jeff Jones and other one is director of communication for the Hoover here Richard who was formerly worked at the White House under Tony Snow Tony Snow no yep Tony Snow so anyway we've when I talked to Michael Oscars secretary a couple of weeks ago she said you know where is Pepperdine so I explained where wasn't she said well it seems like they're taking over the Hoover Institution David Davenport of course our former president is special counselor to the director of the institution as well so we're delighted to have dr. Hanson here he for most of you he will deserve know a great introduction for five years he was a full time former out of the work at the five years he was a five he was a full-time farmer for a number of years before joining California State University in President 1984 I initiated classics program I think as I recall after your 5th generation on that farm which is not too far from Fresno and seven and some of his writing reflects that history of that background and that appreciation and that insight I'm not going to read all of his awards he's the recipient of a number of outstanding awards both for a scholarship for his writing load of which I'm most envious as the Bradley award because of a generous financial benefit he has taught at Stanford at the u.s. Naval Academy at Hillsdale this is a second visit with us as a professor and his bio officially says he's the author of 15 books at home I was glancing we have a couple of days ago Victor - what are your most recent one the father is so I thought I counted 20 20 titles on the inside we thought of that particular book of which he's the author a couple of collections thrown in so many of you will get read Mexifornia which was a widely read several years ago 2003 I mean I think this could be reissued it is not already in updated form so it's my great pleasure to introduce him to you today and the title that he has selected relates I think to his most recent book and also the class that he's teaching this time would you savior generals thank you very much for that very kind introduction I got a confession to make I was at the Hoover Institution last week and we do know a lot of employing the liberal persuasions and one of them came up to me thinking I was a sober judicious disinterested commentator and said I'm so sick of these Pepperdine people I can't look they're everywhere one of them comes in and I'll be frank with you that he was quite derogatory so they're like Mormons they just take over a whole division she said you know she mentioned all of the relationships that Jim just mentioned and then she suggested that the director his daughter is on the Farrakhan show me Steele's son was there and she said at least you're not have anything to do the paradise yeah actually I'm teaching artist semesters my daughters that I had the whole conversation is predicated invasion of the body snatchers I had woken up with a snatch now that's the feeling is Bluebird that it's becoming Pepperdine North I'd like to think that paradise becoming Hoover South doesn't seem to be that way it's an asymmetrical relationship I'd like to talking about leadership throughout the ages I know that's a little bit of pompous in 35 minutes only how do you have to talk about two words most of us we talk about modern leadership we talk about youth that should learn the skills of command responsibility I think too often we deal with a superficial look somebody in the eye be sure it network projector or confidence he will spoken be well dressed these are all important attributes but to really understand why some people are successful in very dire circumstances and most or not I think history's the only guy that we have so I'd like to go back and look at two or three situations where I guess we could call it situation hopeless and yet a few rare individuals change the entire fabric of a war and indeed of world history and I should make one more disclaimer when we talk about war and salvation every war if there's a winner and loser and that's not predetermined at the beginning then there's absent clothes there's always going to be somebody who claims uses he's saved something but I'm more interested in situations or clearly laws and they're clearly won by the efforts of just one person and second of all I'm more interested in a constitutional side of the equation that is people who fought in consensual democratic society I can I could give a lecture about on mine Stein under the brilliance of saving in the eastern come but he did so for the cause of Nazism you could say that Austerlitz was lost in the morning and one two hours later when it relates to Napoleon but the open aim of them was authoritarianism I'm more interested in more of a democratic ideal first person I'd like to look at is the famous Athenian Admiral - Jekyll - politician Themistocles and this odd year he had it for ABC let me just remind you if you haven't seen the 300 lately of the reruns what had happened in that year the Persians had come 490 and they had been defeated at a land Battle of Marathon brilliant battle of Athenian farmers the only city-state that helped them was a small little village of Leitao they had won der iose had died and his sons Archie said I'm going to pay them back like he would not believe literally that comes out prodigies so he came back in the spring of 480 and was somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000 and vibius troops and a gigantic Navy and the large army it was the largest invasion of Europe until d-day in June of 1944 they swept to Thessaly we talked about Thermopylae as a grand last and it was the last time it was in fact a terrible defeat with Greeks and Western civilization they swept then their motto I defeated the athenians of the simultaneous sea battle of our Museum that came and ate the holy city of Thebes took it over the thebes join them and by september 20th of 480 there was no greece as we know it everything above athens was occupied or to join the persians always consisted of was the Peloponnesus of Corinth South I say it didn't exist Athens was not only occupied by the Persians but it was burned and what was the reaction of the Athenians most people thought well we meet them in Marathon maybe we can go out and fight one man said if you fight you're going to be obliterated because this time they don't have 30,000 they have a quarter million troops others said let's go down to the Peloponnese and join the companies we'll build a big wall across the Isthmus one man said if you do that and you're going to be isolated and you're going to be trapped without any recourse and there's no harbors there's nowhere you can fight them at sea and then another group said maybe we can have a gram we occupation to the city and they'll have to be seated he said we will be cut off you can't hold out a city against 350,000 occupation 250 preemptive and this one on and on and on and finding the mystic please make the argument the Athenians should evacuate the city think of it we talked about Kuwait City in the Gulf or being occupied we talked about Paris being occupied in June of 1940 but they were there were still people city Athenians were not occupied by the Persians they abandoned and the Persians obliterated it and they went to Troy's and egged on and especially the idea of Selim so when Dawn came on September 27 the morning of the battle there were opinions are rocky eye of anybody seen Salamis there's no natural resources I my edge I can't stay outside one night somebody's to pitch a tent a sleeping bag a football but these people were sleeping out on the rock of Salamis waiting for their salvation where every other Admiral wanted to retreat and fighting by sheer force of will this man named Themistocles said we're going to fight here and your bodies began the Spartan Admiral began this strike and he said strike me if you will we're going to fight and he was able by sheer force of will to convince the Greeks to fight and what were his arguments they were very brilliant but nobody wanted to hear them they were simply the law of logistics he said the further and further we retreated we think we're in a bad situation but they're further and further version and they have to occupy Greece as they go south so 250,000 seems wired if it's a lot smaller than what they had and it has to be supplied and they take that clock is ticking against then just as US and their use they cannot use their numbers if we fight in the confined waters of the hardware of Salomon's and although our ships are heavier and more cumbersome that may be an advantage you can't use their full force if we ran them and he gave a series of arguments and he was able to convince the Spartans the Corinthians and the other Peloponnesian allies to fight within the harbors of Salamis he also sent messages to King Xerxes who was perched on a throne you can see it today who was watching the battle that if he didn't attack immediately the Greeks might give away that was a ruse we would come out prepared the opinions met made Persian fleet was probably around 1250 ships opinion and the Greeks only had 350 and when the day was done eighteen thousand Persians were killed it was probably the single most the single greatest loss of life any sea battle in history even more so than when pontal and when it was over the fleet of the Persians was crushed Xerxes fled and he left two hundred thousand soldiers without a fleet the next year the Athenians and Spartans beat them at the battle the taya and the entire invasion was destroyed and the rest is history this uttered in an air of confidence riches and what we call 5th century Athens it was all done though by this very spectacular man one man I'm going to explain the end how he did it but I want to go to another example we think that the Civil War was essentially over in 1864 because after all 1963 July 4th 5th there were two glorious battles Vicksburg and Gettysburg ulysses s grant has split the Confederacy in two the Mississippi was now entirely in the hands of the Union and robert e lee's army had almost been demolished at Gettysburg there was euphoria that that swept the country Lincoln was in control he didn't have to be reelected for another 15 months and more importantly he found a man in Wrath who had a series of victories he had never been defeated for Henry Fort Donelson Shiloh Vicksburg and he was going to bring this military genius to the East assumed command of the Potomac he had a brilliant subordinate we've become Sherman and like punching gloves one on the left one on the right we're going to finding shattered the Confederacy grant came in May of 1864 Horace Greeley the New York Tribune all the newspapers heralded the rise of this westerner and people said the war is now in the hands and frontiersmen who can outfight these southern aristocrats so they said sherman and grant worked out a plan that really made they were mutually advanced one on Richmond or on Atlanta and do the same thing as Gettysburg and Vicksburg the year before was horribly crushed confess now the problem with this was that we are now in the third year of the war and there had been a cumulative 200,000 people lost on the Union side there had been draft riots and the Union public could not fathom how a country with 22 million could not defeat a country of 8 or 90 in other words robert e lee and southern generals began to see they did not have to go north they didn't have to win they had a country the size of Western Europe that had to be defeated occupied surrounded and that would be very hard to do for the U so the South had a new strategy of not losing so grant began his offensive in May Sherman left Tennessee in May and then each went toward the respective southern strategic city and then all hell broke loose in a series of catastrophes at the Wilderness 7-days spots of mayhem Petersburg and most importantly Cold Harbor in a period of about 90 days ulysses s grant wrecked the army lieutenant he lost a hundred thousand casualties in fact the army that had existed in may did not even look anything like it by August and he had not taken Richmond and all of a sudden the glory of Grant was completely gone Mary Todd Lincoln said that he's a butcher suddenly George McClellan who had been relieved two years earlier because of the Antietam which was technically a victory he had gotten to within seven miles of Richard suddenly McClellan was going around the country and said at least I got to within seven miles Richmond I surely didn't ruin the army the way Grand Palace you couldn't find anybody in the Union who was for grammar for Lincoln and very quickly there had been a political capacity so close to victory now victory so distant and all the New York papers turned on Lincoln people in his own staff staff and sewer we're all talking about running independent canvasses are stabbing him in the back there was a congressionally both people thought not only would Lincoln not be elected November there was some question we should even be me nominee John C Fremont and late May had a Radical Republican nominee a third party so to speak running on the idea of a stern abolition no more haziness about water states or any of that let's take the war to the South but more importantly George McClellan had been covered his entire political fortunes remember everybody said well we went through the GAO we went through both we went through Burnside we went through groans grunts McClellan then we got the guy grant well now that whole conventional wisdom was over with because McClellan said you should stay with me how long you know I get closer to Richmond and half the cost and grandeur I'm going to run for president and he was running on the Democratic ticket very ambiguous because the copperheads wanted to have a immediate peace and he said he kind of sort of wanted to but kind of sort of didn't want to lose war was a biggest position of hold but nevertheless everybody thought that if Lincoln were nominated he surely would not win because Freeman would take votes from him I guess I could use the arcade term left and the twelve would take it on the right and the country did not like Lincoln and all the newspapers except what had turned on meanwhile when it comes to Sherman is two three miles a day heading toward Atlanta and he's got a really commander Joe Johnson he he starts to surround him Johnson retreats him residue he surrounds him again Johnson retreats Johnson retreats Johnson retreats and by August suddenly he was only 65 miles from Atlanta and lo and behold the army of the West a hundred thousand men was growing and people were criticizing Sherman grants fighting Vince he's just said he's going to stick it out all summer be to Sherman slow ball gown and Sherman kept telling his subordinates we cannot afford to do what Graham is doing if we take the sort of losses that grant does the Union will implode all we need to do is preserve the army out position and take it louder before the election the southerners were very exasperated with Joe Johnson and the terrible strategic bomber they put in John Bell hood who delighted Sherman because he was a slasher and charger Sherman was ready for him in a series of disastrous battles outside Atlanta he lost over 30,000 men in the southern armies and finally on September 2nd of 1864 Sherman sent a message Abraham Lincoln and said so Atlanta is ours and fairly won and he took the city of Atlanta and all of a sudden you couldn't find anybody who was against Lincoln everybody said he was a military genius Sherman and sage read and then next question was okay he took Atlanta but he's 150 miles southern territory he didn't destroy the army of hood it's still surviving and what's he going to do with it laughs in Furman said I'm not surely not going to sit here and occupied it in a shell of the attack but my supply line so he had already planned as you know on November 17th right after the election he headed parts unknown and ended up in Savannah and then he got to Savannah and went up to the Carolinas and I was standing already lead with two armies at front and rear the point that I'm making is that had Sherman not taken Atlanta when he did mephone probably would have won the election there's some controversy over the electoral always looks pretty clear I think that he would have and had he took Atlanta and the way the grant fought he still would have lost link in the election because it was intolerable of public to have a simultaneous bleep bloodletting on both fronts somehow is crazy believe becomes a Sherman was able to craft a strategy withstand public criticism think of a larger picture that I have to get to Atlanta for symbolic purposes as a valuable transportation hub but I cannot fight the sort of battles that grant is fighting and yet and yet grant is doing that you probably a great deal because he's at writing in the ratio of three glosses to at least to the terrible arithmetic and I'm allowing him to do that by stopping reinforcements and by showing some movement it was a brilliant policy that grant didn't quite appreciate the Chairman surely did and finally I want to give one other example what I would call a savior general it's a little bit more frequent in our memory I think you'll know it better it's it could be both involves a Korean War and we're very disheartened about Afghanistan sometimes in Iraq but I don't think there's ever been anything quite like Korea if you remember on June 25th communist North Korean forces probably would some early help the Chinese and Russians decided across the 38th parallel maybe because of Dean Acheson rather careless remark that Korea was outside he said they Democrat the American defense fear in any case and the Lightning advance within about six weeks there was no South Korea Seoul was taking US forces ended up in Pusan with a 50-mile perimeters it was a period of widespread despair because almost every single thing of imaginable is wrong the United States people were reporting back from the front they have something called a mig-15 jet it just destroys anything in our arsenal not just over p-51s it operates so well piston driscoll planes but we have these new operating fixed-wing jets and they're outmatched by all people Russians state communism can build a more secure weapons system and we can and then commanders on the ground of the pusan said it's not just that we're still using Sherman's and then we're using persons and they're still not as good as a team Forte and we told people that people said my god and then the news came the Russians had atomic bombs and then people said you know what we're starting to hear about this new gun called an ak-47 few people have it my god it's it's an assault gun it's not a machine gun and that's not a carbine and it's just out classes they m1 in the in 14 in fact we wouldn't have an answer to it for another 15 years of the m60 and even then that duel was ambiguous and so just a period of rapid depression we were going to write off Korea all the contingency plans had to withdraw from and to Japan we didn't we have disbanded ability blowing people the Pusan Porter held and one of the remember one thing about Douglas MacArthur he can be very good or very bad he's very good 1944 he was completely asleep at the wheel 1941 the same was true of Korea he was totally surprised by the invasion and yet he was about the only person who didn't lose his head and planned a amphibious invasion behind North Korean lines at Incheon on September 15 against all the advice of the Joint Chiefs he took the risk it was successful and lo and behold they had trapped the entire North Korean army 300 miles in the South only 25 miles or so troops escaped and MacArthur was off to the races immediately in July August September he said that it was time to unite North and South Korea today people say MacArthur was crazy he was exceeded Authority we know now that in fact Truman and Marshalls essentially gave the green light explicitly in the case of Marshall he crossed the 38th Ferro he went another 300 miles and by October he was in within 15 miles the Chinese border and the Korean War was essentially over with probably the most brilliant of military campaign in American history MacArthur met as you know gaion they said everybody's going to be home for Christmas there were people like Matthew Ridgway his assistant chief of staff they aren't very worried because if you look at the map of Korea it starts getting more difficult geographically and topographically as you go ignore it starts to widen as you go north and people Korea is not Asia the sense of the stereotyped American Bureau palm trees as you get north it gets frigid and so there were people in the morning MacArthur you've got a greater charity to occupy your lines of logistical supplier now 400 miles you've got the UN but you've told them that UN can participate that they think they're participating as peacekeeping troops of a war that's already over with it and you've got constant threats from the tiny partners don't worry they don't have air support they would never intervene stalin won't let them do it whatever whatever and of course on October 25th 350,000 Red Army soldiers cross the Yalu River and ultimately perhaps somewhere between 750 thousand or million came and they overwhelmed US forces and all of the exuberant hysterical happiness and confidence and triumphal ISM chauvinism almost within hours change into REM that defeatism MacArthur was pushed all the way back 300 miles back across the 38th parallel and more importantly he was outnumbered it was the worst defeat in history of US Marine Corps we lost it one day 3700 people killed Roberta Levin and we had 10,000 casualties within a week and by Christmas Day there's 14,000 dead Americans who were in the verge of victory everybody said that this was a bad idea MacArthur is to be blamed heart of course said Truman is to be blamed who called for 25 nuclear bombs to be given in his control there were some questions who we used poison gas we can dump Radio waste let's have b-29 mom mom there were all of these desperate angry exchanges between the Truman administration there was a lame-duck administration and Douglas MacArthur suddenly on 24th made senior ground commander remember MacArthur's in Tokyo he doesn't know what's going on right he's the theater but general Walker was killed in an accident we've been a division commander corps commander under pattern and we needed to replace it if we wanted to go to Korea and be blamed for being there when the theater was lost so a December 25th Matthew Ridgway who's kicked in five years old just about ready to retire had a distinguished record in Europe but was an outspoken kind of a tough guy six straight look like Captain America but he'd been married three times he just married a 25 year old woman he was pretty happy it was great to retire he didn't have a great heart he never been to Asia he spoke Spanish his knowledge but sure he gets a cold at cocktail parties and said sorry you're going to go table to Korea he said fine want to do it there 24 hours later he was in Tokyo 12 more hours more he was in on the ground and he was facing 750,000 Chinese and read of North Korean troops and with a completely destroyed 8th army and demoralized Mariko and it looked like a catastrophe he looked at MacArthur for advice and the partner said 8th Army is yours Matt do what you want what kind of advice is that I believe you've lost an entire theater and as you know he couldn't do much in the first week and Seoul was taken and this juggernaut kept going and everybody his division commander said it's time to go back to Pusan this time to get out because these are supermen there was a strange idea the Chinese that they had they attacked at night they used bugles that kept off the roads we still did not have the f-86 for a couple more months so we didn't have air superiority b-29s are taking a meeting and people were saying this new ideology when married with traditional Chinese discipline and order is a new phenomenon we can't defeat it and Ridgeway went throughout the line and he started to notice in certain things he did this almost immediately number one if with justiça lines were to extenuate in our circumstances and we are a sophisticated industrial surely do the same with China its operating in Reverse just like it did in June they're coming down and now they're 500 miles from the Chinese border and their lines will be extended and as soon as the f-86 gets here in numbers and it will three or four weeks predicates squadron from Japan we will have air superiority to b-29s Involvement world East supply lines so you look to his division commanders he said I do not want to hear any talk of Defense we treat maintenance I want to know what your plans for offense are he went to his soldier and said you this is with a word where the word bug-out came from the great debug job everybody was making fun of the American soldier he said I would have bugged out too if I didn't have a father when a clothing mail service ciao and my division commanders were 10 miles behind you from now on every division commander is going to be at the front with you you're going to get hot food you're going to get supplies and even though we put aside the Pershing tank and we criticize our fixed-wing aircraft within three to four weeks we will have comparable or better weapons and we are going to do to them what they did to us everybody thought he was crazy and in a series of offensive offer and think of the names operation roundup operation killer people got very very kind who's this guy he was supposed to go over to Korea and stop the killing and get down to Pusan and get out and now he's talking about operation killer and he wants to go on the offensive macarthur tried that and of course in 100 days 100 days after coming on the green sword he had taken a soul back and he was across north of the 38th parallel pretty much little war ended two years later what all these generals have in common I convinced it mentioned many others Curtis LeMay who saved daylight bombing and then save b-29 strategy in World War two there's a number of people and Belisarius the great Byzantine general who saved Justinian's view of taking back North Africa skip-bo Africanness second Punic War took home more peace of people all have in common is there any commonalities across time and space that would allow us to get any insight of the leadership and the president well he did have some common the first is that they were one with their men and I mean that literally they were not MacArthur looked like an aristocrat Matthew Ridgway they called him old iron tits he had a live grenade on one chest and a medicine pack on the other and he dressed in the note he was almost indistinguishable except for four stars from an average soldier and he was out include on a life plane and shot down the ones almost killed and he intended to use his grade but people saw him everywhere Themistocles rode with his men that's how I really got into and he was the one who's chanting Ali Daria Eleuthera el freedom freedom freedom we know that Sherman looked like a slob in fact we have the letter from a Union soldier they said we want to know where uncle Billy is but all you got to know is when you see somebody who's got the dirtiest uniform and that red hair and he's got this against the guard is chewed up you know example building that was their supreme commander of the army of the West so one commonality was that these generals at least felt their men would not fight unless they were going to fight alongside their supreme commander not the division commander supreme commander in fact these three individuals or closer to the front than their subordinates the second is we think that you have to network you have to be well-connected into an aristocratic background all three of these people in various committees were shaded character and not liked by their peers and for accents of history they probably would have never gotten to man the missing case was a half Athenian he was creation he was a demagogue people thought that he was capable of anything saying anything or doing anything the assembly in fact food parks life of him is really a story about why you don't want to turn politics over to a rabble-rousing namibian from the lower classes Sherman had was an orphan and he had been adopted by and married as foster City they were quite the Ewing family was quite wealthy but everything that Sherman had tried 20 years prior to his marginal aina had been a complete failure he tried banking in San Francisco failed he tried to be a teenager try to be a farmer try his dorky food fail fail fail why because he suffered from asthma and manic depression will he know that so it would be either very ill or you be up all night ranting and raving or he could go into periods of long refresh finally in 1859 a little thing called the Louisiana it was a new Military College would become LSU they gave him the superintendent ship he did very well guess what given Sherman's luck the working law all he had to do was say I'm neutral we'll continue to be a very distinguished college administrator to said just when he had found it he designed and went north fought it bull run his father his brother was a sinner and then they gave him command of Kentucky a key border state Kentucky and Tennessee theater and what did he do he started to have these moods again and he said usually manic depressives are her brilliant people they have visions the rest of his film he said my god you're going to need a million people and this war can go on for four years here that the Union Army was supposed to be three months and $75 and the Cincinnati observer had a headline by 1862 Sherman insane crazy and relieved and he had to go home back to Ohio his career result luckily for him he recovered his health improved he befriended ulysses s grant and he outranked and in Shiloh he woke up surprised and he went to bed as a national hero being shot his book having three horses shot him under his hands job and the rest is history but he was a very erratic figure Matthew Ridgway had crossed everybody in the US military in the Anzio campaign there was a crazy idea to have an airborne parachute attack on Rome which is one division it was all set to go to Ridgeway literally woke up and said I can't allow my men did slaughter and canceled which Mark Clark never forgave he got on the wrong side of the white icicle so much think of this great Eisenhower that everybody quote today as a father or country a model of bipartisanship when Eisenhower wrote his memoirs he hated Ridgeway so much that he said in March when we tweak took sole general Van Fleet and his brilliance we took the city general man we hadn't even been elected yet he didn't even want to mention that which way to take him soul in fact Ridgeway his entire career he said the wrong thing in the wrong time politically intellectually philosophically always the right thing he said I would not go into Vietnam party we've got people Eisenhower to his advancement that advice but people like Maxwell Taylor dick and people got very angry and then when we were in Vietnam he said I wouldn't get out of it look I didn't leave bad idea to get in worse I didn't leave in shame he was a champion for interracial and integration of Miller and everybody thought he would be in his 80s and 90s at the forefront of having women in the military said no we don't want women in combat and that just enraged the let up as much as they had champion on the racial mission he didn't get mental freedom - he was 95 years old and the only reason economist ready needed somebody would go to vet firm and stupidly shake into the German general I mean he didn't notice that there were SS soldiers in this cemetery Barry finally said I'll do it he did admit he got the Medal of Freedom then immediately the New York Times and Washington Post said Ridgeway sells out his soul with 92 different so he had a very checkered and tragic life as did the other two finally I think most importantly they were visionaries that's a very promiscuous if you use word but what I mean by that their mind was never at the mystic the mystical his mind was never at soundless alone Sherman was not thinking about I got to get to Atlanta that I going to be time Ridgeway was not thinking I take back sold mice career is cemented I think a lot of people think that their ideas were larger that I'll give you an example what I mean Themistocles idea was simply this is a radical democracy it's interesting new and a great quarter and yet half the population is not participating militarily military participation is the essence of ancient citizenship marathon is a great land battle by the landing classes but it's not going to save the city because next time they come they're going to come with coordinator so when silver was found in Lorient two years before and 42 everybody said let's distribute it and Themistocles that no no let's build a fleet and people said why don't you build a fleet you be the group he said okay a gonna that I don't know whether it might attack us of course they weren't but it was a way of getting a fleet though if you have a fleet wonderful things happen the lower classes participate they're paid a state wage they have an employment they get prestige and there's a greater balance the city-state and if you have to evacuate land then you have an option if you have a fleet if you don't have a fleet in you or outnumbered at land you're going to lose your land army and you lose your city itself he came up with a brilliant idea that quoted the historian new cities but it's derivative mystically is that a city is made of people not walls not infrastructure people that the people survive in the city consistent they call him to mystically into 8 Paulo's without the city they were so happy at this radical concept but as in other words Salamis was they tests were more larger we'll say if you look at German quite brilliant he in his memoirs and letters he realized very quickly that this war had started with rifled muskets and minie balls which were quite lethal compared to the old brown best type of musket but it was working at a phenomenal rate that we're starting to have explosive cannon shells rubber ponchos canned food railroads Telegraph Henry and Spencer repeating Michaels were one man could shoot 27 bullets a minute if you could load this clip quick enough or is used to take five or six with it musket the appearance of some rapid shooting guns and German said the old idea of courage has to be redefined and more important you can't just charge fixed positions as grant is doing because even if you win it will be a period and more importantly he came up with the idea of total war no being total war killing people could kill very few southerners they came up with a radical concept when he went to Atlanta and it was basically to be the still does this look at the Civil War and cultural political terms and social terms don't just look out of his levers as gram three percent of the South has slaves three percent what's moral about a bunch of poor white people going up in Virginia and getting killed to protect slavery of the three percent their own why not break the war home to the people own property the plantation class especially is richest of all states of Georgia and make them pay or as he said later make Georgia howl and that was a radical concept that was considered off there and attacked the infrastructure of the south their Arsenal's are post office or government buildings but do not kill southern soldiers and so what he did is he started to undermine the cohesion of the south to this Sherman went down he humiliated the south humiliated the plantation class but he didn't kill the white working-class that was fighting they thought for southern nationalism but this became clear they were fighting for what a plantation class at its older model more importantly there had been a mint of southern superiority and battle these were the Cavalier class Sherman said the Cavalier class of plantations they don't sleep out side they don't work like you do now maybe they're better soldiers than people get off the boat New York I have relatives that you did just that so I deprecated but he was saying we have soldiers from four states 90% of his regiments came from in Michigan Illinois Indiana IRA and these are small homestead farms they like County now they like shooting they like butchering pigs the more muscular they're stronger they're better than anybody inside the set of four are not farmers there's sort of a ministerial class that attends to the plantation they have no middle class my army will go down there and show people in the South that northerners albeit Midwestern are better soldiers tougher people like fighting wars and he demonstrated that was a psychologically devastating other words total war was exactly what his implied a cultural social psychological war in a way that Grant had not found and finally Ridgeway was a visionary because when he took over command he was shocked at what American strategic thinking undergo eisenhower and a series Louis Johnson and a series of Secretary of Defense remember we had for Secretary of Defense's in 13 months and what was the strategy because the atomic bombs had ended the war of roughly in Japan there had been this idea that we didn't need conventional forces any more than any war would naturally escalate into a nuclear exchange and therefore we could disband believe it or not Louis Johnson advocated disbanding the Marine Corps we could dismantle conventional forces we didn't need aircraft carriers the results by 1950 there really wasn't a conventional deterrent Matthew Ridgway alone had been writing and speaking and saying you don't understand when the Soviet Union got nuclear weapons and because of the Rickett nature of them they cancel each other out neither side will necessarily resort to them and then how are you going to fight and there will be fights given human nature and the only way you can fight in this new circumstances are conventional limited Wars and people didn't emphasize Americans fight to win and Ridgway tried to teach people that you are like my heart that you will have to fight a war and defeat a person but it won't be necessarily adjudicated traditional terms given aspect or injured away and so when he got back across the 38th parallel you can argue that he could have gone all the way back from China people can argue back and forth but he said something because again like Sherman has to mystically he was thinking socially politically culturally this American to this new out lone American populace do they really want to supply an army on a Manchurian border right next to the Soviet Union and China for the next 50 years I think the answer was no and so he created the entire concept of limited conventional wars and thanks to Ridgeway the United States rearm and was able to protect the conventional since its assets and allies in Asia and Europe do we have any savior generals on the horizon I think we do I was struck the other day and I'll leave semi partisan - partisan but I was listening to the comments on Egypt and if I could collate what Vice President Biden Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama said about Egypt I think it would be fair to say they said the following in order 14 day period Mubarak is a dictator non dictator he has to leave immediately yesterday soon very soon occasionally sometime in the future and he has no role to play he's a transitional figure he's a keen transitional figure because at some point the Muslim Brotherhood should not participate should participate must participate I thought to myself where have I heard these three people before me that he knows of course September 2007 who was there in the Senate General David Petraeus what had he done single-handedly he had created a movement within the Pentagon against all the wishes of the joint chief against the wishes of general Abizaid we've been you know sort of forcibly we need to command in 2007 and March general Casey and he had this idea of counter insurgency worker out of the counterterrorism he had some support in the National Security office people like thread Kagan and Jack keen in other words he was saying that the war in Iraq is not lost even though the dolmen Samaria did blown out there these the casualty figures per month were spiking and he's made the argument that they limited footprint Abizaid Casey Rumsfeld all great men but they had said that the reason we have insurgency is because of our high profile Petraeus almost alone said no the reason we have insurgency is that people can't participate in rebuilding the country because they're going to be killed at night where we're sleeping in a bunker outside of town so we have to take these people and we have to put them all over Iraq and teams of two and create we have to surge maybe 30,000 troops that's not enough really to change a time that psychologically it will be important it will send a message of determination this was a time when George Bush's approval ratings were 32 percent 66% were against the war and it started to work although Petraeus said as we surged and as we get out of our compounds we're going to suffer higher cash the American people did not want to hear in a campaign cycle that some general was going to overrule his superiors and in the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense and call for more troops up to back up to 165 and we promised to be down to 110 and this was going to make was counterintuitive it was going to make things better like more fighting and more troops and awful lost war so these three senators who are now the architects of American foreign policy in a very famous September 10th if you remember that day you woke up in the New York Times gave a discounted ad to move on.org called General Petraeus Secretary Clinton 15 minutes of questioning said General Petraeus I concluded that your testimony requires a suspension of disbelief other words you're not not liar Joe Biden said the words lost general and I've been over to Iraq and the only way that will save the country is divided into trees and I'm moving to a motion in the Senate you're completely wrong I know much more about Iraq you do it became a term Barack Obama you talk for eight minutes and didn't ask one question but said the war was lost and the surgeon made things back course within three months American casualties were down to less than 15 we have the an tomorrow awakening in all the 2008 as the war started stabilize it became milk pain issue I think you could argue that one man almost by sheer force of personality was able to turn around entire ward did he fit that profile they have talked about yes you talk to people about General Petraeus and they didn't particularly like him they called it a network or a kiss-ass married super tennis daughter etc etcetera operated outside of channels was he one of those men I went to Iraq twice once I walked they said what do you think of David Petraeus he talked I said that was David Petraeus they said yeah I said how do I know they said well he has his name Petraeus here I didn't look any different next day when I interviewed him I said one should I'm going to go general Colonel McMaster when should I come back well you'll be back about midnight I said oh I guess I guess we kept me oh no no I will have at 1:30 in the morning Penner's is it I said well yeah but we have to get up at 6:00 this is what I'm going to get up a tree a year older than you I know that but he's a very combative this eccentric person and now I will leave you with one aspect so these guys end up well because it made the argument that they're eccentric and they're sort of like when we get in a jam we open the closet nickname is on attraction people out and we say George Patton's or Sherman's we say please restore things and then when they restore that we put them back in and say I didn't have anything to do with that driver and I wish I could say they end up well Themistocles committed suicide in service to a Persian satrap they once an enemy and General Sherman and mostly presided over the grand reunion of the army of the West and said he didn't want to run for president and said that said well I believe wild things and spent the next 20 years and constant controversy with people Matthew Ridgway as I said was not given very many honors he was promoted when Eisenhower was MacArthur was moved in April he had that job gentlemen he fought back and forth he was made supreme nato commander the allies complained about that he was anti or in any other checkers I mentioned I don't know how this bodes well for General Petraeus but when I when I read that Iraq adventurer General Petraeus had fainted edit your agent Petraeus had prostate cancer didn't betray us was asked to go to Afghans and I said it myself here we go again thank you very much thank you very much I don't know if we have enough time but let's say it's let's take ten minutes out of your lunch hour if you want to do that and take a couple questions and I might be a little bit of opportunity responder you let's try to get these you want take this break again after Thank You dr. Hansen I think it was the Korean War where the famous quote Hutu attributed to we're not retraining we're just attacking in another direction yeah and it was implicit in everything and she said eruption expand on just a bit it seems like all of these men had a really true insight and appreciation for logistics if they did and the bullying Center army travels on its stomach and I'm thinking too of General Washington Valley Forge in the winter of 77 and seven and 78 and how they didn't really engage the British troops and generate here to retreat and then I would attack and then they'd fall back again and that's the kind of war that they wage forever the fact that's a very good point because as you know when Sherman was going to Atlanta what was he doing at night when you see these pictures of his ground scribbling he was computing the number of rail cars that could reach at land on how much food and ammunition they were bringing and then when he decided to cut his supply line and go to Savannah yet all the logistical problems figured out to a team same thing with first thing Ridgeway address when he got to Korea was a lack of winter uniforms a lot of hot food the lack of ammunition and especially weapons parity he tried to explain they had a three and a half inch bazooka to counter the t-34 they wanted a up arm Pershing tank the 90 millimeter gun they got the 86 and the point was he saying we have to have better equipment and more of it than the enemy so yes that's a very good point but just logistics were key command thank you uh it sounds like what you would've been saying that in the character to be a savior general there is required a certain level of respectful but at the same time prudent interface with your superiors and I'm wondering if you could comment a little bit about how that has evolved over time from ancient reads the Civil War to the era of Petraeus and McChrystal has there been a consistency in how members of the military deal with their superiors and periods of disagreement and if there are any outliers to that effect well your question is predicated in the notion that the best minds are not always four-star general so then one of the three start to store 1 store currents do and there's parameters in which they have to work in if they're Yes Men and their head daughters and we'll mention names there's many of them in the US top ranks or officer corps then they're never going to distinguish themselves they may end up a forced or retired well we will never know who they are most of the four-star generals today we've got to be four-star generals by not making waves they got good retirement it didn't matter whether they existed or not so this bigger general or the Mavericks or the eccentric generals have to work within from obviously if they swear a commanding officer or the mouth off the press their careers will be aborted all these people's I said Themistocles and Sherman in which we came close to that I think the answer is that they had a vision that at some point their talents would be needed when nobody else wanted the job and nobody else's traditional curriculum would be of advantage maybe Curtis that everything will happen oh man he just waits but they haven't be in a position of that and they had to have a headlock the fine line of being known as eccentric and are maverick somebody like pecan or one for example and yet they had to be also known as somebody who was not offensive that people you know just shun to the side sometimes patent cross that line and cost us dearly when the slapping incident meant we didn't have him in Italy he would have done things that Mark Clark could not have done cost thousand American lines because he went over that line and he was that same type of maverick figures I think if I were to sum up though in general I think what I would call essentially these men as a tragic view the tragic view of life suggests that things don't happen the way we want and a person lives their lives according to certain values and he less society beside how that's going to end up there's a sense of fatalism all of these men did not clamor for the job which ways attitude was they got themselves a no massing career I know how to get us how people know that I know how to get itself but they don't hate me it's tragic but I'm not going to change my attitude or my tactics when I strike so they will pick me I may end up nobody the mystically is knew exactly what what would happen and he also assumed that after he won people were treated very terrible given this character factor Sherman realized that chayo he was kind of crazy and he was going to do what he did very heroically get on the front line they got killed that's what happened he said mo whether I may be killed what I have to prove that this is a way that we can come to terms not free so I think in all of our lives a message to us is that you live your life according to certain principles and protocols with the understanding that life's knots there and you'll probably have no chance to shine but you're not going to change anything however that every man and every woman had certain rare moments in their lives chance happens that it favors them for split moment or week for them and you have to be ready and that's what the or they were ready to take advantage of circumstances that they did not create and they were waiting almost like a lion or a predator waiting for things to happen when that moment came they took it but they were perfectly willing to be rejected if it meant that they had to be true to the principles Sherman I don't know how you do prevention I don't hate that I would have heart once I'm Curtis will make my father feel fully investments over Tokyo or b-29 on their hand and my god this is a man he said they the lares submarines have no business with missiles on missiles are an Air Force Prague is that sac is that you don't know it didn't move main there's a new system no no you go down to those Glarus missiles and you write s Strategic Air Command on every one of those down deep this other means while you're sleeping they brought the m16 hours that we don't want the m16 we have to use the importantin no you take every Air Air Force soldier and you're going to have an m60 I mean you did things like them and then he ended up running you know for vice-president George Shultz it was it he's a kind of person you wouldn't want in this room but you wouldn't not want in when you needed the bomb Tokyo or I could wonder maybe one more there was a factor in particularly MacArthur's case that I lived through unlike most of the audience going up to be in Korea and I remember when truly when MacArthur was relieved to command and came back home parades were organized for him he was regarded as the great man when Truman was regarded as the traitor and then order traitor was used and I don't remember Ridgeway coming across as as the brilliant maverick MacArthur was able to twist his relieving from duty as being somehow rather his getting stabbed in the back by those crummy politicians Truman in Atchison who didn't know anything about military I remember MacArthur riding down Sheridan Road in northern Illinois on a sort of a victory lap and hundreds of thousands of people gathered around the roadside paying him homage as you went by how does that square with with no it's absolutely right with one caveat remember that unfortunately I think was on April 10th 1950 so as I said it 107 days at Ridgeway was actually the senior commander on the ground it was very unfair because when an operation killer and operation Ripper operation roundup started to work are they had a very bad habit of flying in to Seoul after they retook Seoul and then right in the middle of the offensive when it started work to give a press conference and say that it was as I I had no idea was finally my Ridgeway did not know how to deal with him and he little notes that being the great Patriot you are the enemy is watching your movements because yours key to my success when you come in where they know that the offensive is going to go on so please don't come and McCarthy accepted that but Ridgeway was in a very impossible situation because on the one hand he felt that he could get back across the 38th parallel without an inner war and stabilized theater and yet he was very sympathetic to MacArthur's and obvious skills and obvious patriotism and he was very aware that people in the US State Department were very naive about the perils of communism and he was very aware that MacArthur was his own worst enemy so when he basically did was letting MacArthur fight with a platoon back and forth and Marshall and he won the war on the ground and then when MacArthur was relieved he was kicked upstairs in April but when I said caveat there were to Time magazine front pictures where he was you know on the cover of Time magazine and in that period of December late December but especially January 1951 1952 he was almost a savior so when he died and : Powell said his funeral this is a man that the United States owes more than any other man alive he was telling the truth and he didn't really get caught up with the MacArthur George Marshall etc Riley he was very heard about finished with this that late in life he had been told that MacArthur was a big supporter of his said man you know it's eight armies yours matter doing a great job when the card Lee was in the 70s he gave an interview in which he said that Ridgeway had no strategic vision and he was just playing back and forth across the 38th parallel and he was a mediocre commander and he would rake made him six of the people who could have been there six and it's very poignant moment in ridgeway's two memoirs where as I was shocked because General MacArthur had publicly assured me that I was his most loyal henchman he had all his confidence I realize now looking back at my life that why he was doing this he was giving private interviews and undermining which had an effect on life and very hurt by but yet if you mean in his memoirs he's very brilliant what he says about MacArthur MacArthur was a hero world war two he had obvious talents that he had not had the Incheon landing that we listened to the Joint Chiefs we will lost Korea but strategically he was a 19th century thinker who didn't realize the ramifications of nuclear threats he didn't understand communism all too well better than anybody's United States at that time unfortunately he didn't have the proper strategic response to it so Ridgeway thank you very much thank you very much for going on you kid occurred to me at one point that if someone walked in the middle of this and didn't know what the topic was and they heard the description of these people that have been the focus of our presentation but the presentation they might mistake anything you were talking about Dean's people when you leave you may want to pick up an announcement that we will have the back of a conference that will be coming up in March that I think maybe will be interested in it's called a place in the world a sense of place in the world geography identity civic engagement in modern America it's being hosted by the Davenport Institute which is our research and conference and an outreach arm of the School of Public Policy Pete Peterson who's the director hood is back here and there is a collection of about a dozen of the most outstanding people that we can find anywhere in America as the speakers for this two-day conference it starts in the afternoon about Friday May the 11th and goes through the day on Saturday on March 12 so pick up one of those we don't mind to have you join us for that and thank you
