transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:05] Do you believe the president has a fundamental understanding of how military power actually works and how it should be used?

Speaker 2:
[00:14] It's hard for me to look into the mind of the president to be able to make that statement, but...

Speaker 1:
[00:17] Well, you've seen enough.

Speaker 2:
[00:19] I guess what I'd say is, after this being his second term, he has certainly wielded military power effectively in some areas. So if you take a look at Venezuela, an incredible operation on the part of our special operations forces, and I'm afraid that gave him maybe an oversense of confidence that, well, we could just whisk in and countries would fall as a result of that.

Speaker 1:
[00:47] Hi, everyone. I'm Katie Couric, and this is Next Question. Admiral McRaven, I know you told me to call you Bill.

Speaker 2:
[00:56] Please.

Speaker 1:
[00:56] But honestly, you really deserve to be called Admiral. I'm going to start by reading your official biography because, let's face it, you're such a badass. Here we go. William McRaven, former University of Texas System Chancellor and retired US Navy four-star admiral, joined the school as a professor in national security in 2018. As chancellor, he oversaw 14 institutions that educate 221,000 students and employ 20,000 faculty and more than 80,000 healthcare professionals, researchers, and staff. As the commander of US Special Operations Command, Admiral McRaven led a force of 69,000 men and women and was responsible for conducting counterterrorism operations worldwide. He is a recognized national authority on US foreign policy and has advised presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and other US leaders on defense issues. Admiral McRaven oversaw the 2011 Navy seal raid in Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. His book, Special Ops, Case Studies in Special Operations, Warfare, Theoring, and Practice, published in several languages, is considered a fundamental text on special operations strategy. He has received the Republic of France's Légion d'honneur, I wanted to include that so I could show off my French accent, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association's National Award, and the National Intelligence Award. In 2016, he was named the recipient of the Ambassador Richard M. Helms Award by the Central Intelligence Agency Officers Memorial Foundation. And not in your official biography, but because so many people know you this way, and as is mentioned on the back of your new book, Admiral McRaven's famous 2014, Make Your Bed Speech at the University of Texas went viral with over 150 million views. That book is a collection of other speeches and writing, and it is called Duty, Honor, Country, and Life, A Tribute to the American Spirit. It is out now, and in it, you will find wise, stirring words. These are my words, not yours, from a true American patriot. So, Bill McRaven, welcome.

Speaker 2:
[03:24] Well, thank you. It's great to be with you.

Speaker 1:
[03:26] Let me start by asking you about the mood of the country and the war in Iran, which I'll get to in a minute. But I was struck by one particular passage in your book. You write, for all our missteps in the past 250 years, we are still the nation that the world looks to for help. We are still viewed as the good guys. Having served for 37 years in the military, I can tell you from experience that soldiers fight for this country because they believe we are noble and honorable and decent and good people, and we are. Respectfully, Admiral, I think a sizable number of Americans feel that this country has lost its way and may sincerely question whether we still really are the good guys.

Speaker 2:
[04:15] Yeah. I think you can say that parts of the country have lost their way. I'm clearly not a fan of this administration. But having said that, tens of millions of people voted for this president. The president is the duly elected representative of the country and the commander in chief. That being said, again, I'm not happy with the direction the administration is going. However, I travel around the country all the time. I travel around the world. And so when I have an opportunity to spend time with the young students at the University of Texas or traveling on the speaker circuit, this is where you get your inspiration. This is where you realize that Americans, maybe not Washington DC politicians, but Americans are still good people. They want to get out and do good things. In one of the speeches in there, I talked about the fact that when you look at the world giving index that takes a look at all the countries in the world and who gives the most in terms of just general philanthropy, we rank number three. Only two small countries are ahead of us just from a per capita standpoint. Russia is in the low 30s and China is in the low 40s. So we still are, I think, the good guys. It's just unfortunately we're not projecting that as a nation because of some of the things I think this administration is doing.

Speaker 1:
[05:39] More than one year into this second Trump administration and almost two months into the war with Iran, there are increasing signs of strain within our military's ranks. NPR reports a sharp increase in service members calling hotlines to explore leaving the service. Some troops express a moral discomfort with how this war is being conducted along with serious concerns about retention rates. How concerned are you, Bill, about the morale of the military at this moment in time?

Speaker 2:
[06:12] Yeah, I mean, you're always concerned about the morale of the young soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines. But what I can tell you is the leadership they have, the senior leadership that I know, that I know personally, are remarkable men and women, and they will do everything they can, everything in their power to make sure that they are taking care of their troops. And the war issue is always something that comes up. I mean, when I went to Iraq in 2003, I realized I had a job to do. Whether I agreed with the decision or not, my job in the military was to follow the directions and the orders of the commander-in-chief. And this military still has a responsibility to do that, unless it is an illegal order. And so far, I don't think the president has issued any illegal orders. But the fact of the matter is, the young men and women in the military, they're smart. They read everything that's going on in the press. They hear the back and forth, and I'm sure it concerns them. But I can tell you that they will do their job. They will make the American people proud. They'll do whatever they are asked to do, and they'll do it with tremendous courage and integrity. And that is because the senior leaders in the officer ranks and the non-commissioned officer ranks will ensure that they do so.

Speaker 1:
[07:33] I have unending respect, Admiral, for our men and women in uniform. And I imagine you speak to a lot of people just by virtue of your service, who are still active duty, who are still working at the Pentagon, who are still at bases all over the world. I'm sure you're pretty plugged in to that network still. Am I correct?

Speaker 2:
[07:55] Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1:
[07:56] What are they saying to you?

Speaker 2:
[07:58] I want to frame this in a little bit of a broader context. Because I can tell you, again, without naming certain presidents, I can tell you there were times in my career where I didn't think presidents were performing as precedentially as they should have been. But you still go do your job, and you still find out a way to keep the morale of the young men and women around you as high as it can be. Yes, there is some concern coming from some of the senior leaders because they see a lot of their fellow senior leaders being cast aside. Chief of Staff of the Army, Randy George, was just asked to resign. I know Randy personally, he is a phenomenal officer, was a great Chief of Staff of the Army. Of course, CQ Brown, when this administration came in, he was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He was told to step down, Lisa Franchetti, who was Chief of Naval Operations. I know both of them very well, tremendous officers. But this isn't the first time that's happened in the American military. Other secretaries have come in and said, you're not the man or woman I want in this role, and they've been asked to move on. So I think when you put it in the broader context, I won't say that there's not more angst now than there has been in the past. I do think there is more anxiety on the part of the senior leaders. But I also look back over, again, my 37 years in the military and probably looking at this for close to 50 years, and this is something we've been through before, maybe not to this magnitude. We'll get through it again. The troops will continue to do what we ask them to do, and they'll maintain the integrity, I think, that the American people need them to maintain.

Speaker 1:
[09:36] From the outside looking in, because I covered the Pentagon for a short amount of time and got to know obviously a lot of the leaders, and I'm far removed from that world now. But from the outside looking in, this seems very different than previous administrations.

Speaker 2:
[09:56] It is different.

Speaker 1:
[09:57] You're being very nice and diplomatic, and I appreciate that.

Speaker 2:
[10:01] Well, I'm not trying to be diplomatic though, but I am trying to put it in perspective.

Speaker 1:
[10:07] Right.

Speaker 2:
[10:08] Okay?

Speaker 1:
[10:08] But when you put it in perspective, you make it sound as if it's business as usual.

Speaker 2:
[10:13] It's not business as usual.

Speaker 1:
[10:14] Can you elaborate on that?

Speaker 2:
[10:16] Yeah. It is not business as usual. I'm not fooling anybody by implying that it is. But what I am saying is whether it's business as usual or not, and no, I don't think it's business as usual, but the American military will stand firm and do their job. That's the point I'm trying to make.

Speaker 1:
[10:35] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[10:36] Are senior leaders concerned about some of the tweets that they see? Are they concerned about some of the-

Speaker 1:
[10:43] The firings?

Speaker 2:
[10:44] The firings, absolutely, and the proclamations of the secretary and the president? Sure, they are. Absolutely, they are. Today, in this world, which is a little different than maybe my early years, you didn't have social media, you didn't have the 24-hour news, it just inundates the young soldiers and the senior leaders. So yeah, it is much more concerning. The only point I'd make is whether it's at a level 10 or a level 5, the military is going to do their job, and the military will find a way to get through this and maintain their integrity. I'm not saying it's business as usual. What I'm saying is the military will find a way to work through this.

Speaker 1:
[11:22] Let's talk about how this is impacting certain situations, specifically this war with Iran. I think with the military infrastructure and figuring out how to prosecute a military action like Iran, previous presidents have really talked to people in leadership positions to get different perspectives, points of view, to talk about the ramifications or repercussions of certain actions before they engage in a military action of the sort that we're seeing right now in Iran. Are you concerned that that kind of debate, that kind of conversation, that kind of dialogue is being stifled and eliminated in a Pentagon that doesn't want to hear from people who may disagree with a way of doing business?

Speaker 2:
[12:19] Yeah, I'm absolutely concerned. So just to talk to your audience directly or so, again, I spent two years on the National Security Council staff and then a lot of time, obviously, in the Pentagon. And so within the executive branch, we have the interagency process, as you understand. And the interagency process brings together all of the kind of three-letter agencies in the State Department. And so if you have an issue, and let's say the issue is, we're thinking about going to war in Iran. So under a normal administration, you would have a Planning Coordination Committee, which is kind of think of the one-star level, but from State Department, from the Department of Defense, from Energy, from Treasury, you bring from the CIA and the other intelligence organizations. And they would begin to staff the issue, and they would come up with some approaches. If the president said, I want to know what my options are in Iran, they would work it, then it would go to a deputies committee. And this is the deputy of the organizations. So the Deputy Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, etc. And they would look at it, and maybe they like it, maybe they don't. And then, you know, that gets revised, then it goes up to the principals, and then it goes to the National Security Council. But every step along the way, there are experts that have a deep understanding of the military, of the Iranian culture, of the ramifications. They've got people that have been through the Straits of Hormuz, they've been to Kargile, and they have these people that are writing thoughtfully and trying to provide the president in options that are well thought out. I don't know for a fact because I'm not on the White House staff anymore, but from everything I understand, this president doesn't operate that way. It's a very small group of his senior advisors that come together, and they provide him what they think are their best approaches. Now, on the military side, you are certainly getting the benefit of a lengthy process. I guarantee you that. Joel Dan Cain, who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is a close friend. He's a terrific officer. I know he is going to US Central Command, had Cooper down there, and working through all the issues. The problem is you don't have all the other experts that are, I think, need to be in the discussion. And therefore, when it gets to the President, he's got some military options, but he may not understand the full scope of the other options that are available.

Speaker 1:
[14:41] I guess the follow-up is, how concerning is it to you, Bill, that that process may not have taken place? And in fact, if you read Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swans reporting in the New York Times, this decision was made largely on instinct, not intel.

Speaker 2:
[14:59] You know, when you're thinking about Iran, there's a number of things that, again, the senior military officers are going to always provide the president their best military advice. They're not going to opine on the political environment. They're not going to opine on diplomacy. They are going to opine and give their best military advice. But I have no doubt that when this was being discussed, somebody in the military told the president, one, regime change is going to be very, very hard. We've not had a lot of success in that. No, by the way, the Iranian regime is not just the supreme leader and the head of the IRGC and the IRGC Goods Force.

Speaker 1:
[15:38] It's integrated throughout the country.

Speaker 2:
[15:40] It is integrated throughout the country. It is deep. And so you can take out all the top leaders and you're still going to have the clerical regime, right? And now, if you believe Israeli intelligence, the regime that's in place now is more hardline than the previous regime. So they would have said regime change is going to be hard. They would have told them that we've never had a war where we have bombed our way to victory. That just doesn't happen in war. Trying to get the 940 pounds of highly enriched uranium out of wherever it might be will be very, very challenging. You never ever, ever talk about Iran without talking about the Straits of Hormuz. Somebody would have told the president, Mr. President, as soon as we strike Iran, they will look at the Straits of Hormuz and figure out a way to close it. It will be very difficult for us to reopen it. So all of that would have been provided to the president of the United States and his senior team from the military. Now again, because obviously Secretary Rubio is the Secretary of State, my guess is he would have had people on his side as well, giving him whatever they thought were the appropriate diplomatic advice, et cetera. But it isn't the process that we think about that happens in most administrations. Now candidly, and I think this is important for your listeners as well, sometimes just because you have a great process doesn't mean you have a great outcome. There were a lot of things that happened in the Bush administration, the Obama administration that I think they went through the process, and the answer wasn't always correct.

Speaker 1:
[17:16] Well, it's the fog of war, right?

Speaker 2:
[17:17] It is the fog of war. It's just-

Speaker 1:
[17:19] The best laid plans, et cetera, et cetera, right?

Speaker 2:
[17:22] But I do think a process, a thorough process certainly gives you a better chance of success than, again, as Maggie's reporting, that maybe this was just the intuition of one man and trying to figure out how best to approach this.

Speaker 1:
[17:38] Well, given as how we've seen this war unfold, do you think that President Trump listened to all the things that you described he should have heard prior to making this decision?

Speaker 2:
[17:52] When I first started getting concerned was when the president said, I don't understand why the Iranians haven't capitulated already. Don't they know we have a couple of carry battle groups off the coast of Iran? Which to me indicated he really didn't understand the nature of the Iranian culture. He thought he could pressure them into just capitulating and say, yeah, we'll agree to everything because we know you're going to strike. Well, if anybody looks through the culture of Iran just for the last 50 years, they would find out that the Iranians were going to fight. They had a 10-year war with Iraq where they lost a million men. This is not a group that just decides they're going to give up because you threaten them. So that to me was a worrisome statement on the part of the president that I think he really believed that he could, again, pressure them enough they just say, okay, we don't want you to attack us, so we'll give up.

Speaker 1:
[18:48] Well, that leads me to my next question because I think we've seen a pattern of Donald Trump's use of military force treating it at times as a tool to achieve quick political outcomes as we saw, for example, in Venezuela. But the situation in Iran clearly is much more complex. And unpredictable. So my question to you is, do you believe the president has a fundamental understanding of how military power actually works and how it should be used?

Speaker 2:
[19:22] It's hard for me to look into the mind of the president to be able to make that statement.

Speaker 1:
[19:25] Well, you've seen enough.

Speaker 2:
[19:27] I guess what I'd say is, after this being his second term, he has certainly wielded military power effectively in some areas. So if you take a look at Venezuela, an incredible operation on the part of our special operations forces, and I'm afraid that gave him maybe an over sense of confidence that, well, we could just whisk in and countries would fall as a result of that. But Iran is not Venezuela. So I do not believe he had a full appreciation for how challenging it would be in Venezuela. But again, you can go back and look at a number of other presidents in the past that probably thought something would be a little easier than it was. And it didn't turn out that way either.

Speaker 1:
[20:10] President Trump has also used the military, as we've seen, as an extension of domestic law enforcement, Minneapolis, other cities across the country. Aside from the serious constitutional questions at play, what does this do to the integrity and apolitical nature of the US military if these lines are crossed?

Speaker 2:
[20:31] This is an area where under a certain title, Title 32 and others, he can bring in the National Guard in, he can do things that do not put us in a situation where he's invoking the Insurrection Act or something like that. The military is very, very sensitive about being on the streets of the country. I've had a chance to talk to a bunch of young soldiers in various locations that are patrolling the streets and they try to be as deferential to the population as they can because they feel uncomfortable about doing it. Again, it's a little bit different with the National Guard because they are used to being in a very helpful position. When there are disasters, the National Guard gets called up and they go down and they do great work, whether it's Hurricane Harvey or down in Katrina or a picksome place. So the National Guard is a little bit more used to being on the streets than the active duty military. I can tell you the active duty military does not want to find itself on the streets of America because we haven't been trained to do that. And I think most young men and women that are serving the military know that that's just not a place they want to find themselves. A little different for the National Guard.

Speaker 1:
[21:43] But what have these soldiers said to you about getting deployed in cities across the country to assist ICE agents, for example?

Speaker 2:
[21:53] Yeah, I mean, I haven't talked to any of them that were directly assisting ICE agents.

Speaker 1:
[21:57] What do they think of the idea of it?

Speaker 2:
[21:59] Yeah, again, I think from the standpoint of the idea of deploying active-duty military on the streets of America, no, that's not something that we would, has it been done before? Yeah, of course it has. But it's never a place where the United States military wants to find itself unless it is truly, truly a challenging situation on the ground in the LA riots, those things.

Speaker 1:
[22:23] Do you worry about the impact it has on the refutation of the US military as an apolitical body?

Speaker 2:
[22:32] Right. This is the one area where I think you find today's military leaders are struggling. They want to make sure that they are following all the lawful orders that are given to them. They want to try to remain as apolitical as they possibly can. But these are, again, challenging times for them. So yeah, they are not comfortable being tossed into a political situation. They don't like to be photographed in situations where they appear to be a prop for the president. Again, not that other presidents haven't done that before, but it makes them very uncomfortable. The military wants to remain as apolitical as they possibly can. They want to make sure that they are doing what they are expected to do in accordance with the Constitution, to protect and defend the American people. I mean, that sounds a little bit like an advertisement, but that's where we live every single day.

Speaker 1:
[23:31] If you wanna get smarter every morning with a breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake Up Call, by going to katiecuric.com. Over the course of this war, I'm curious to hear your reaction to the way President Trump has really explained or communicated to the American people his plans. He's repeatedly threatened to target Iran's civilian infrastructure, including power plants and bridges, going so far as to post an expletive-laden missive, if you will, on True Social on Easter morning, no doubt, demanding that Iranians, quote, open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. I wonder for someone who has had your distinguished career in the US military, Admiral, what is your reaction to this kind of rhetoric from the President of the United States?

Speaker 2:
[24:47] Bill McRaven's opinion is it's appalling. But it's not only appalling, it is both appalling just from a civility standpoint. You expect the president to be more civil. You also expect the president to be presidential. But I also don't think it's a good strategy. I think when you are trying to pressure your enemy by coming out on truth social, and you're changing that narrative every other day, then you look terribly erratic. In some cases, I think the president looks like he doesn't have a full understanding of what's going on. Now, he may or he may not. But the problem is, when it vacillates from close the straits, you bastards, to, hey, we got a plan, everything's going to be fine, they're going to open up and we're good. Again, from a standpoint of the Iranians who are trying to maybe come to some negotiated settlement with the United States, or just from the standpoint of the United States trying to pressure them in an appropriate manner, it's hard to understand the direction the president's going. So it is unpresidential. It doesn't reflect what I think are our American values, and civility is important. Also again, I don't think strategically it's working.

Speaker 1:
[26:12] What impact does that kind of rhetoric, in your view, have on the military, on the American people, on our standing in the world? In other words, what are the repercussions for expressing oneself that way?

Speaker 2:
[26:29] The repercussions are, going back to one of your first questions, and I'm not Pollyannish about this, I'm not naive to the problems that we've had in the past. We've had military adventurism, we've had presidents that have done horrible things in the past. But the fact of the matter is, we still want to be the good guys. I can tell you, again, the soldiers I spent time with, they want to do good. Yes, sometimes they got to go out and take care of the bad guys, and that is hard, difficult, brutish, horrible work that has to be done, and sometimes it has to be done. But I will tell you, what I saw in Iraq and Afghanistan is soldiers risking their lives to help young Afghan kids and families and Iraqi kids and families trying to do right. And they want their president to be a reflection of what they feel is honorable and decent and noble. And a lot of times, presidents do it, even if they're not those people, there's a performance that has to go along with being the president. This president has decided that he's not going to do that. And do I think it appeals to a certain segment of the military? Sure, it does. You have some young soldiers that get fired up when the president or the Secretary of Defense starts dropping F bombs and trying to look like a manly man. But those that have been in the military for a while, again, the senior NCOs, the senior officers, it doesn't impress them, nor should it. And I don't think it again serves the country well when the president doesn't look or sound presidential.

Speaker 1:
[28:15] What do you think of Pete Hecse?

Speaker 2:
[28:17] Look, I'm not going to opine on the Secretary of Defense.

Speaker 1:
[28:20] Secretary of War.

Speaker 2:
[28:21] I'm sorry, Secretary of War. Look, what I don't want to do is the young, again, the young soldiers that are out there, they have a job to do. I will repeat it here again. The president of the United States is the commander in chief. We have an obligation, we have sworn an oath to the Constitution. Everybody raise their right hand and swore that oath. For all the soldiers that are out there, listen, you have an obligation to follow the orders of the commander in chief and those in the chain of command, period. That's it. That includes the Secretary of Defense. The fact that I'm not a fan of Pete Hecse, has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not the soldiers should be doing their job. Go out, do your job, do it to the best of your ability, let the politicians handle the politics, and you go be good soldiers.

Speaker 1:
[29:10] Duly noted, but he is facing bipartisan backlash after abruptly firing someone who you say you deeply admire, Army Chief of Staff, General Randy George, with no explanation. He has kept, I know, a couple of one-star generals, two black and two women. He's blocked the promotion of them to one-star generals. He repeatedly said he wants to root out what he calls woke leadership. I know that there are many people who have, well, House Democrats have introduced six articles of impeachment, alleging abuse of power, war crimes, mishandling classified information, obstruction of oversight. So yes, I get it. You don't want to say something that gives the troops the wrong message. But surely Admiral McRaven, as someone who has been a leader of your stature for as long as you have, you must have some view of how Pete Hexseth is doing and the job he's performing.

Speaker 2:
[30:14] Of course I have a few, Katie, but the fact of the matter is my voice carries weight. If you think I'm going to sit here and undermine the Secretary of Defense or the President. Again, I don't agree with the President. I'm not a fan of the President. I'm not a fan of Pete Hexseth's. But the American people elected the President. And he is the Commander-in-Chief.

Speaker 1:
[30:38] But does that mean they should stay silent if he's doing things that they view as unconstitutional, unethical, inappropriate? Okay, wait.

Speaker 2:
[30:47] They the military?

Speaker 1:
[30:48] No, I mean people in general. People who voted for him, for example.

Speaker 2:
[30:53] Yeah, absolutely. People in general? You bet. Every American citizen who isn't happy with the President, who isn't happy with Pete Hexseth, ought to have their voices heard. I have no issues with that. But if you're in uniform, you better do your job and you better, as long as these are lawful orders. I know you don't like me saying that again and again, but the fact of the matter is, it's important because if that breaks down, then morale gets even worse. If that breaks down, then somebody is going to get killed on the battlefield. So there have been other secretaries and presidents I didn't like. And again, as long as their orders are legal, now again, if they're not legal, or if you don't like their orders, then certainly as an officer, if you don't like their orders, you always have the option to say, thank you very much, it's been an honor to serve the country and I'm stepping down. You can do that. You can do that anytime you don't like an order, whether it's legal or illegal. If it's illegal, you don't follow it.

Speaker 1:
[31:56] I guess there's a school of thought. I'm curious what you think about this, where people are wondering why certainly retired military individuals who have the stature like you or General Mattis or other people have not spoken out more on some of the things that we're witnessing, this administration do. Is it just sort of an unspoken rule? I know a lot of former presidents will never criticize current presidents, but in any world, do you see it as a duty to point out some of the things that you're witnessing?

Speaker 2:
[32:34] Yeah, so you probably need to go back and see what I wrote in President Trump's first term.

Speaker 1:
[32:38] I remember.

Speaker 2:
[32:39] Yes. Well, I was exceptionally critical, but we weren't at war. We weren't at war. And so things change. Now we're at war and kids' lives are at stake. And when kids' lives are at stake, then we all line up, we salute smartly and we move out, right? When this war is over, rest assured, I will not hesitate to criticize whoever I think deserves to be criticized for the actions they took. And I was very critical of Donald Trump during the first term. And I heard about it from a lot of senior officers. And I said, I got it. And there is, well, it's also a violation of the UCMJ, technically. Mark Kelly is fighting that now. And I think what we'll find is as a retired senior officer, I think you have all the rights of an American citizen to be able to speak your mind. And I did. And I don't regret that at all. But I also understood the criticism. When fellow senior officers would say, hey, you shouldn't be speaking out, there's this kind of unwritten rule about that. I would say, no, I got it. I understand that. That's fair criticism. But I also had to wake up every morning, look myself in the mirror. But now is different. Now we're at war. And I will hold my criticism until things have calmed down a little bit and kids' lives aren't at risk.

Speaker 1:
[33:53] Will you come back and talk to me then?

Speaker 2:
[33:55] Yeah, you bet. Happy to do it.

Speaker 1:
[33:58] All right. We have it on tape. In addition to the rhetoric I asked you about on social media, which is certainly a departure from previous administrations, Secretary Hegseth and others have sort of positioned this as a holy war for Christianity. And I'm curious how you feel, Admiral, about invoking religion in a way that seemed to frame violence as righteous or even divinely sanctioned. We're hearing a lot of scriptures being shared at the Pentagon to the assembled troops, where even if they might have come from pulp fiction instead of the Bible. I just am wondering how you feel when you see this war framed in those terms.

Speaker 2:
[34:43] It's not good. It's not right. This is why we have separation of church and state. I'm Catholic. I just came back from Rome.

Speaker 1:
[34:50] Did you see the Pope?

Speaker 2:
[34:51] I did not get a chance to see the Pope. But the fact of the matter is, no, I don't believe that we need to frame any war in terms of Christian values in this case. Christian values are, I mean, Jesus Christ believed in, it was peace. I mean, he was the peacemaker. Again, there's going to be a certain segment of the military that that will appeal to. I saw it on the battlefield all the time. You know, the great units that are out there, they all have chaplains, and before they go out on a mission, the chaplains get together, they say a prayer, they give the kids a little bit of spiritual uplifting, and I'm okay with that. I think that's important that the young troops have got that available to them. But for a president or a secretary to frame this war as a holy war, no, I don't think that's right at all.

Speaker 1:
[35:39] I wanted to ask you about NATO, because with this administration, we've seen a fundamental shift in our relationship with our allies, and you wrote a piece for The Atlantic. I know, reflecting on your time building NATO's Special Operations Forces Command and fighting alongside allied troops both in Iraq and Afghanistan, describing not just their courage and sacrifice, but the deep bonds and shared values that underpin those partnerships. I have to imagine watching President Trump treat our allies the way he has, must call you.

Speaker 2:
[36:15] Yeah, I mean, the fact, again, it's not only, you know, not presidential, it's not smart, it's not strategic. The fact of the matter is we need allies. I mean, Winston Churchill said, you know, the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them. And the fact of the matter is, you know, we have had this longstanding relationship with NATO. And as I wrote in The Atlantic article, I have tremendous, tremendous respect and admiration for the NATO soldiers that I've served with in Afghanistan and the Brits in Iraq. You know, they are tremendous soldiers that do each of their nations proud. And again, it doesn't make good strategic sense to be undermining our allies and then expect them to come to our aid when you've spent your time humiliating them or undermining them. So our alliances, whether it is NATO, whether it is our alliances in Asia or anywhere else, are really truly important. You really can't fight any war today alone. And I think we're finding that out. But yeah, I'm a big fan of NATO. And yes, it hits hard when the president, again, talks about how weak NATO is and how ineffective they've been. And my point in the article was, well, then you didn't spend any time with them in Afghanistan like I did because there were some great soldiers and we lost a lot of them.

Speaker 1:
[37:38] Do you think those relationships can be repaired?

Speaker 2:
[37:41] You know, it's going to take time. I was just in Paris at an event right before going to Rome with the French and the British Special Operations Forces. And I had an opportunity to talk to them that night. I was keynote speaker at an event. And I got very emotional because this was hard. This was hard because we have had such a great relationship for so long. And they know that they can trust the military. They know that our bonds are very long and deep. They don't know whether they can trust the administration to use the American military in a proper fashion and to continue to strengthen these relationships. And that's just hard. Again, I have 37 years in the military. But my father was an Air Force officer. I grew up in France. I spent a lot of time with Europeans over the years. So that part was hard. But it's not, again, not just the Europeans. I'm concerned about our alliances around the world, and the president certainly seems to be focusing more on our alliances with kind of authoritarian governments rather than those I think that share our values.

Speaker 1:
[38:52] That must be very disappointing.

Speaker 2:
[38:54] It is disappointing. And again, I'll say it's disappointing, but the bigger issue, I think, right now is that it's not strategic. It's not good strategic thinking. I teach a class at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. And I teach a class on national security decision making. I have about 25 students in the class, graduate students. I put them in the White House Situation Room, and they role play members of the National Security Council. And I give them a framework for thinking about how do you make difficult national security decisions. And the first question they have to ask themselves is who are we? Because if you don't know who you are, whether you are the president of the United States, whether you are the CEO of a company, whether you are the president of the university, if you don't know who you are, if you don't know what your values are, then every decision you make after that is probably going to be wrong. But at one point in time, I tell them also, you have got to make sure that the actions you take are going to put you in a better strategic position when you're finished. So if you're thinking about running a particular mission, you're thinking about an operation, you're thinking, are you going to be better off strategically if you take these actions and make these decisions? And so when the president undermines our alliances, strategically, I just don't think that puts us in a better strategic position.

Speaker 1:
[40:30] Hi, everyone, it's me, Katie Couric. You know, if you've been following me on social media, you know I love to cook, or at least try, especially alongside some of my favorite chefs and foodies, like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen, Lighty Hoyk, Alison Roman, and Ina Garten. So I started a free newsletter called Good Taste to share recipes, tips, and kitchen must-haves. Just sign up at katiecuric.com/goodtaste. That's katiecouric.com/goodtaste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did. I'm curious how you think this administration's systematic hollowing out of diplomacy and intelligence services has made the war in Iran more deadly, because I know in the Washington Post last July, somebody did their homework here. You wrote, this is no time to weaken any element of America's power. The dismissal of highly trained diplomats at the State Department and the dismantling of USAID will jeopardize national security and make the military's job much more difficult. Our national security has never depended on military strength alone. Rather, it relies on collaboration with the strong foreign service and diplomatic corps. I've stood shoulder to shoulder with these dedicated public servants in some of the world's most dangerous places, and I've seen firsthand how they advance our national interests.

Speaker 2:
[42:06] Again, I'm a huge fan of the great men and women of the Foreign Service and the State Department. As I mentioned in that article, wherever I was around the world, there was a Foreign Service Officer there, an Ambassador, a Chargé, a young Foreign Service Officer trying to do right, trying to do a good thing. So what you've seen over two administrations, the Trump administrations is, as you pointed out, a little bit of the hollowing out of the State Department. This is concerning. I think my friend Jim Mattis once said, for every dollar you don't spend on the State Department, I've got to buy more bullets. His point was, look, we can't win a fight just for the military. You need diplomacy. You need to make sure that you have great diplomats out there that are preventing us from going to war or that are shaping the way the outcome of the war might play out. So yeah, when you do not have a strong State Department, when you have a less than strong intelligence community, and maybe a politicized intelligence community, you begin to doubt whether or not the advice that you're receiving is going to give you the best results. So yeah, of course you worry about these things.

Speaker 1:
[43:21] And what about USAID? I think people really don't understand the importance of quote unquote soft power, Admiral. And I wondered if you could explain from a military perspective. I mean, it's sort of very much what General Matt has said, which you quoted, but can you help people understand why USAID was, in your view, so important?

Speaker 2:
[43:43] I'm sure there were a lot of problems with USAID. I can't debate that. I don't know the inner workings of it. When President Trump came in this time and he said, hey, look, we need to take a hard look at all of our branches and decide whether they are effective and efficient. I'm all about that. Absolutely. Every president ought to come in and say, let's take a look at the Department of Defense, let's take a look at the State Department, the CIA.

Speaker 1:
[44:05] Or the US government writ large, right?

Speaker 2:
[44:07] Or the US government writ large. How can we do things better? How can we be more efficient? How can we be more effective? No issue at all with any of that. And USAID, happy to have them take a look at that as well. And were we probably spending too much money? I don't know, you know, people who know it better than I. But what I can tell you from being on the ground with USAID is, when you saw AIDS show up at, oh, let's see, the earthquake in Pakistan that devastated the northern part of Pakistan, USAID were some of the first people there. Military helping move USAID aid in there. Tsunamis, hurricanes, typhoons across the Pacific. It's always USAID that shows up along with the military helping to distribute it. And this soft power is what saves lives and frankly, helps governments better align themselves with, you know, what our values are and what our strategic goals are. So, I mean, again, I remember specifically the earthquake in Pakistan and the Pakistanis were very concerned about US military being on the ground in Pakistan in large numbers. So, you know, we had to do things a little bit at night. We tried to keep things a little bit quiet. But they knew that the aid that was coming in was USAID. And that kept a tense relationship. And our relationship with Pakistan was always tense. But that kept it stronger. And you see this everywhere we go. This ability to leverage our great, again, foreign service officers and the diplomats that are out there, to be able to leverage USAID, to be able to leverage humanitarian aid that the military has. All these sorts of things help shape the, again, the battlefield, if you will, wherever that might be.

Speaker 1:
[45:51] And it's such a small percentage of the budget.

Speaker 2:
[45:53] Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, again, could we have made USAID better? Absolutely. I'm certain of that. Were there inefficiencies? Absolutely. I'm certain of that. That's true of every government agency. So yeah, fix it, but don't kill it. I mean, it's too important to just go away.

Speaker 1:
[46:10] Let me wrap things up by asking you a couple of questions, if I could, about preparedness. Because I think there's a growing argument that the war in Iran has revealed a fundamental shift in warfare, in which relatively cheap drones and missiles can neutralize even the most advanced military advantages. So I guess my question, is the US military investing in the wrong tools? Should they be changing their toolbox or adapting their toolbox to the ways wars are being fought today?

Speaker 2:
[46:45] The US military does this every single year. We always reevaluate whether or not the military strategy is the right strategy, not only for the moment, but for the future, right? And sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong. The Navy went out and built the Littoral Combat Ship. So the LCS, so the idea was, more of the wars were going to be fought in the Littorals, those kind of areas between the shoreline and the deep sea, where we had a great advantage with carriers and destroyers and those sort of things. And the war would be in these kind of Littoral areas. Well, it didn't turn out to be the case, but we spent a lot of money, but that seemed like the right direction to go at the time. And you can go back in military history and find this time and time and time again, where we invest heavily in something, submarines. So during the Cold War, submarines were the way to go. And the submariners kind of ran the Navy until all of a sudden the wall falls. And guess what? We don't need submarines anymore. And so you're always going to have this predicament. So now we're looking at autonomous systems. You're looking at these 55. So an Iranian Shahed drone, I think $55,000, got about 100-pound warhead on it, can fly for like 1,000 miles. And you're like, yeah, that's a heck of a lot better than an F-35. The problem is, as soon as you come up with a capability, somebody comes up with a counter capability. So before we go off and invest and decide that everybody in the military, we need to have drones everywhere and autonomous to this, we got to be very, very careful. The military moves slowly for a reason. If all of a sudden you turn too quickly and you decide that, well, we're going to do away with carriers, we're going to do away with large armies, we're going to do away with the Marine Corps because now we can do everything with drones and autonomous systems, and then all of a sudden, that is no longer a viable weapon system because somebody's figured out how to jam them or how to defeat them en masse, then you're in a difficult position. So the military is always, always thinking about what's the next ridgeline, what's the next battlefield going to look like? Yes, we go through extensive research and sometimes we get it wrong. But if you move too fast, you're more likely to get it wrong. So I think we'll watch how things are unfolding in Ukraine. We're learning a lot from the Ukrainian war. We're going to obviously see a lot from this war in Iran, and I think the military will pivot appropriately, but we're still going to get some things wrong.

Speaker 1:
[49:11] How worried are you about AI?

Speaker 2:
[49:14] I guess I'm not as worried as a lot of people are. As long as we have a person in the loop, which I hope the American military always will, then AI can be an important factor in helping to speed up our decision process, to see targets before they come in range of the eyeball or maybe even our radar systems. So again, I think AI will be a welcome addition to the tool chest. But there's always got to be a person in the loop on critical decisions. I try to explain this when I talk about Navy ships. So on a Navy ship, you have a close-in weapon system called a CWIS, and it's got a radar that picks up, let's say, a surface to surface missile coming at you. Well, the captain of that ship has to make a decision on whether or not he's going to have that close-in weapon system, basically a Gatling gun, whether he's going to have weapons free or weapons tight. If he says weapons tight, then somebody has got to push the button before that Gatling gun goes off and hits that incoming missile. If he says weapons free, then he has made the decision that between the radar system and the weapon system, it can engage whatever targets come in his direction. If he happens to be wrong, then you know where the blame falls. It's on the commanding officer that made that call. So is the CWIS an autonomous system? It is if the decision is made to allow it to be autonomous. You have to have a person in the loop to be able to make these decisions, I think.

Speaker 1:
[50:47] As you were talking, I was thinking about my dad who served in the Navy during World War II, and the Pacific Theater, if he were alive, would get such a kick out of me talking to you and listening about naval ships. He used to tell me the story and my siblings about how he had to help with the smoke machine.

Speaker 2:
[51:06] Sure, of course.

Speaker 1:
[51:08] To obscure these ships from the kamikaze pilots, and how he did that one night in the middle of the night, and his ship was enveloped by smoke, and he saw another ship right next to them being attacked by kamikazes.

Speaker 2:
[51:24] Because the smoke machine wasn't going, sure.

Speaker 1:
[51:26] Yeah. We've come a long way since smoke machines.

Speaker 2:
[51:30] But every time we have a technological advance, there's a technological advance after that. We continue to leapfrog. And so once again, back to your question, you have to be careful about putting all your eggs in one basket, because things change pretty quickly.

Speaker 1:
[51:42] I want to end by talking about the title of your book. It is taken from West Point's motto.

Speaker 2:
[51:49] It is.

Speaker 1:
[51:49] Duty, Honor, Country, which was adopted in 1898. In its opening page, as you reflect on General Douglas MacArthur's invocation of these words in his last public remark, it is stating, Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn. I'm curious, you know, when I think about this book, this isn't just for our soldier sailors, airmen, and Marines. This is really for people, I think especially young people trying to forge their path. I think there's no mistake that this has come out around graduation, which I think would be a wonderful gift for people. Chalk a block full of life lessons. And I'm curious, what are some of the most important life lessons that all these writings and speeches might convey to people who are about to embark on a career, or actually just need a reason to believe again, honestly, not only in themselves, but in our country?

Speaker 2:
[53:09] What I've had a chance to talk to some other folks about the book is that, if you are losing a little bit of faith in the country, if you're worried about the direction of the country, I hope you will take an opportunity to read this book. Because as we started off, there's a lot of bad things happened in the country. But there is so much good going on in the people that I have a chance to spend time with, and that I've certainly spent time with over my life and my career, that I'm eternally optimistic. I'm eternally optimistic because it is about the American spirit. This American spirit, which I tend to think is like the, it's the personification of the American character. It's this belief that we can do anything. I mean, we just sent a crew of four around the moon, and soon we're going to land back on the moon again. You know, we're going to cure cancer. We're going to figure out how AI is going to work for us. There is this kind of constant belief that as Americans, we can do anything and we can overcome whatever problems we've got right now. But the other thing I talk about in the book is our democracy. And we're coming up on 250 years. But this is still the grand experiment.

Speaker 1:
[54:17] Many democracies die after 200 years, right?

Speaker 2:
[54:20] That's right. So I offer a few ideas on how we can continue to keep this democracy strong in the next 250 years. But the one thing I would add, I gave a speech in 2020 to MIT, graduating class of MIT 2020. But of course, it was during the pandemic. So I had to do the speech remotely. And at the time, we were seeing kind of heroes come out of everywhere. There were the delivery men and women that were shown up on your doorstep because you couldn't go to the grocery store. There were the nurses and the doctors that were taking care of the patients. But I told this class, and the title of the speech was, Captain America is not coming to the rescue. And I wanted to be very candid with them right up front. And I said, look, there is no Captain America. There's no Superman. There's no Batman. There's no Harry Potter. They're not out there. It's up to you. It's up to you, the students of MIT. It's up to us, the American citizens, to become the heroes we need to be. And I said, look, the first thing you have to do to be a hero is to be courageous. Churchill once said that courage is the most important quality because it guarantees all the rest. You have to be courageous. You have to stand by your convictions. You have to speak truth to power. You have to stand up to the bullies. You have to do these things to be courageous. You need to be humble. I quoted Plato's Apology of Socrates, Socrates says, I am the wisest man in all of Athens because I know so little. And his point was, look, you're never going to grow, you're never going to solve problems if you think you have all the answers. And of course, you think about the young students at MIT, these are kind of the cream of the crop. They probably all think that they've got the... Well, no, be humble. Be humble when you look into a telescope. Be humble when you look into a microscope. Be humble when you spend time around people. So, look, you have to be men and women of integrity. You have to be compassionate. I said, and this is one of the things that, again, I worry about sometimes, that we have lost a little bit of compassion for our fellow man. I believe in compassion. I believe you need to find a way to help people that are ill and infirmed. You need to be able to help people that are down on their luck, regardless of what political leanings they might have. So, if people are looking for something that I hope is uplifting, there are a lot of great Americans out there, we're going to be fine. This is going to be a tough time for us. We've been in tough times before. We'll be okay. But it is up to us. It is up to us. This is a democracy. If we don't like the way things are going, we can vote people in and we can vote people out. And until that changes, then the country is our responsibility. And if we want to last another 250 years, we better get to work.

Speaker 1:
[57:16] I hope you'll come back and be able to talk freely.

Speaker 2:
[57:20] Oh, I was talking freely.

Speaker 1:
[57:22] Not the whole time.

Speaker 2:
[57:24] I was talking freely because, again, the reason is we're at war now.

Speaker 1:
[57:30] No, I get it. I get it.

Speaker 2:
[57:32] It's important.

Speaker 1:
[57:32] And honestly, I respect and appreciate that. But what I was going to say is I hope in the future, Admiral McRaven, you'll be able to come back. And let me finish my sentence and talk freely about whether you believe the current leader of the free world embodies all the qualities that you just mentioned.

Speaker 2:
[57:53] I think you've figured that out in this last hour we've been talking.

Speaker 1:
[57:56] Thank you so much for coming in. I really appreciate it. I'm a huge admirer of yours and I really appreciate your time.

Speaker 2:
[58:02] My pleasure. Thanks, Katie.

Speaker 1:
[58:08] Thanks for listening, everyone. If you have a question for me, a subject you want us to cover, or you want to share your thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out. Send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next question is a production of IHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media. The executive producers are me, Katie Couric, and Courtney Litz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are Adriana Fazio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode or to sign up for my newsletter, Wake Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app or visit us at katikouric.com. You can also find me on Instagram and all my social media channels. For more podcasts from IHeart Radio, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.