Episode 14. US Army In Eastern Europe: Making 30,000 Look Like 300,000

Episode Transcript:

Amb. McCarthy (00:00): Our podcast brings together senior US diplomats and senior US military leaders in conversations about their partnerships and in tackling some of our toughest natural security challenges. I am Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, the producer and host of the series. Today, our focus will be on US interests in Poland, Eastern Europe, and the role of US Army Europe in the region. Our guests are General Ben Hodges and Ambassador Steve Mull. They worked closely together on US diplomatic and military interests in Eastern Europe during the period after Russia's military invasion of Ukraine and its increased military activity along Europe's Eastern border. Ambassador Mull, you have a particular knowledge of the region. You were posted to Poland three times: in the mid eighties, when it was still behind the Iron Curtain; in the mid nineties, after the fall of the Berlin wall; and in 2012, when you became the US Ambassador. Your Polish language ability is legendary and you were a great hit when you took to Twitter as Ambassador. We'll talk about that later. You also served as US Ambassador to Lithuania a few years before me. You held other high level positions, including Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs, Executive Secretary of the Department and Lead Coordinator for Iran Nuclear Issues. You just retired from the Department of State and are currently the Vice Provost for Global Affairs at the University of Virginia, my alma mater. General Hodges, you served as Commander of US Army Europe from 2014 to 2017, but this was not your first time in Europe. As a young Lieutenant, you began your career in Germany. And also later you were the aide de camp of the Supreme Allied Commander. In your career, you commanded infantry units at the company, battalion, and brigade levels at the 101st airborne division and in Operation Iraqi Freedom. You also served as Director of Operations, Regional Command South in Afghanistan, Director of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell at the Joint Staff and Commander of Allied Land Command. You hold the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies at the Center for European Policy Analysis. So gentlemen, let's begin. In early 2014, Russia invaded a portion of Ukraine, a country located between Russia and Europe. It annexed one part of it, Crimea, and also sent its military to support a secessionist movement in the east. This interference continues to this day. In the wake of this Russian aggression, key NATO allies on the Eastern front, including Poland, pressed the United States to increase its military presence in their countries. General Hodges, between the time you served as a young Lieutenant and your assumption of command of US Army Europe, the permanent US military presence in Europe had shrunk by something like 87%, but after Russia went into Ukraine, we began sending additional, but non-permanent troops. How did you manage his patchwork approach to the challenge?

Gen. Hodges (03:07): Ambassador, if I could start by saying how glad I am to be reunited with both of you, two great American diplomats serving in a part of Europe at a historic time, and it was a pleasure to see both of you in action and to get to work with you, and so thanks for this opportunity.

Amb. McCarthy (03:23): Likewise.

Gen. Hodges (03:23): We had to deal with decisions that were made probably 10 years ago, that seemed like the right decision at the time. We all thought Russia was gonna be our partner, it's what we all hoped for. And we can all remember even having Russian troops with us when the implementation for us went into Bosnia to implement the Dayton Peace Accord. And there was no need for 300,000 American troops in Europe, and so all of us, including our allies, began to downsize. And of course we were focused on Afghanistan and Iraq, different threats. When I arrived in 2014 in Wiesbaden, I took over from my predecessor, Don Campbell, another great officer who had to face the Russian attack in Ukraine himself first, and we responded by putting four companies of paratroopers, one each into Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. That was the quickest way the United States could respond with soldiers who were stationed in Europe. And so of course the mission was assurance to allies that the United States was committed. And it took a little time for everybody, and this is completely understandable, to realize that this Russian threat, this was not something that was a passing thing or an aberration, that this was a reawakening of the Russia that we've known for the last 500 years. They only respect strength. So it took some time to get the systems going. The Alliance, I think responded very quickly. That was a key part of this. The Wales Summit and then of course the Warsaw Summit. But we recognized early on, it was an economy of force, that we were not gonna get a big infusion of capabilities anytime soon. And so you had to begin working with our allies, with the embasies, to figure out how do we create the effect? How do you make 30,000 look and feel like 300,000?

Amb. McCarthy (04:58): So Steve, Poland reacted strongly to the Russian incursion. When it happened, the US already had a military presence in Poland, yet Poland wanted much more. How did you manage expectations with the government of Poland and how did you work together to manage these?

Amb. Mull (05:13): First of all, it's, it's great to be here with you, Deborah, really old friends and partners. A modern visitor to, to Poland, as somebody who'd never been there, you land, it seems like a prosperous, clean, happy, secure place. But, if you scratch just a little bit below the surface, you have to remember that for much of Poland's history, it's been incredibly insecure. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2014, in fact, aroused these deep feelings of insecurity. And no matter how many times I would meet with the president or the foreign minister or defense minister to say, "Hey, you guys are gonna be okay, you're in NATO, you have an article five guarantee," there was a worry that America was losing interest in Europe. We were under budgetary pressures, that we would not abide by the commitments we had made to our NATO allies. And the moment that Poland began to doubt all of that, it put in jeopardy some of the things that we rely on Poland for, whether it's in being on the Eastern flank of NATO, or to participate in many of the expeditions that Poland was an enthusiastic participant in, whether Afghanistan or Iraq, over the years. So when that invasion happened, it was clear that we had to use not only words in assuring the Poles that we would take their security as seriously as our own, but it would actually require action. Within 72 hours, we had F-16s above the skies in Poland, using as a base the small aviation detachment that we had established in 2012. As the conflict continued in Ukraine, it was clear that the Poles expected more. And so we began to lay the groundwork, working together with General Hodges and our colleagues back in Washington, in fact, to end up producing something more. And that's where Ben came in and played a starring role in rushing his troops to Poland in a really powerful and enduring way.

Amb. McCarthy (07:07): It takes negotiations to get additional troops in country, you don't just send them. Was it difficult to negotiate their deployment, their arrival, I mean, did the Poles pony up in terms of what they have to do in terms of infrastructure to greet the troops? I know when I was in Lithuania, they rushed and moved to prepare to greet the troops. They did everything.

Gen. Hodges (07:26): I had not anticipated, which by the way is probably why I'm retired Lieutenant General Hodges, but I had not anticipated the challenges of moving across borders, across Europe. I just assumed this, they were all EU countries or all NATO countries, this would be like going up and down I-95. And also just like in the US where the Department of Defense is not responsible for our border with Canada or Mexico, the Ministry of Defense in Poland or Lithuania was not responsible for the border with other countries. It was another ministry. And so our normal interlocutors were not the right people to deal with for moving across Europe. And then of course the Air Force was smarter than I was. They had established this aviation detachment there in Poland that Steve just referenced, and we had not yet done that. So we were still relying on the normal structure, the ODC (Office of Defense Cooperation) and the attache team, to work a significant increase in transportation requests and coordination. Of course, we started off depending on the Illinois National Guard, through the State Partnership Program. And Illinois is as good as any state with their partnership program. And then we started augmenting them with soldiers from our headquarters in Wiesbaden. I made the mistake of rotating them too fast. And so you're asking young guys to learn procedures, to facilitate movements quickly. Eventually we got it right. We got a longer term, again, thanks to Illinois, a longer term Army detachment, established there, and also figured out the procedures to be able to move more quickly. But that, that was a learning process. And I was a little bit thickheaded, I think, so I appreciated the Ambassador being patient with me as we eventually got this right.

Amb. Mull (08:56): This was really one of the more frustrating contradictions that I think we both ran into. It was clearly in Poland's national interest. It was really their number one national security priority, to get US forces based in Poland, on Polish soil. So you would think if that's a national priority, the national priority, that doors would swing open and it would happen very quickly. But in fact, it didn't, this took years actually to sort out to get this right. And there are a couple of different factors at play. First of all, Poland has a tradition of a very centralized government that controls almost everything that you can think of. Then you factor into that a history, that Poland was actually occupied by the Soviet union. There was a massive Soviet military presence there throughout the post-war period. When Poland regained its freedom in 1989, one of the first orders of business was to write laws and procedures to make it very difficult for any foreign military power to ever come there again. No one really quite anticipated that this would be a barrier for American troops. And then you add to that, the infrastructure of Poland, it's not like in the West. It's getting a lot better, but still a lot of country roads that Ben had to bring his equipment and troops through, that weren't really built to handle those kinds of movements, bridges that tanks couldn't fit under, other transports couldn't fit under, it required a lot of planning. So we ended up setting up this structure, I think there were 23 memoranda of understandings that we had.

Amb. McCarthy (10:29): 23? I only had to do one with Lithuania. My goodness.

Amb. Mull (10:31): Yea, we had working groups for everything you can imagine. How many DVD players could American troops bring with them? What would happen if an American soldier got in a car accident or a bar fight, who would have jurisdiction? What would happen?

Amb. McCarthy (10:46): I understand in the beginning it was like 30 days to get stuff through Poland and that figure slowly but surely went down, and I gather at the last NATO summit, they all agreed that it should be nine days. That's still a lot.

Gen. Hodges (10:58): I think that the key to this obviously was recognition by the Minister of Defense and the military leadership, I mean, they understood what this was all about. And again, my ignorance, I didn't anticipate all the other ministries that would be involved in this, that Steve and his team were having to deal with. So there was a pull from Polish military to get this fixed quickly, because this was to support them. And I think that the process, I feel actually very comfortable with it now, throughout all of Eastern Europe, it still takes too long in some places to cross the borders. The infrastructure is still inadequate or not well known. I mean, there was actually a reluctance in Poland, now that you've reminded me, they didn't want to share...

Amb. McCarthy (11:35): They didn't want to share their maps.

Gen. Hodges (11:36): Right, and for good reason, when your country disappears for a century off the map, you're reluctant to be open on everything. And so eventually this was about building trust between allies and we have no better ally than Poland, in terms of their soldiers, what they do, Poland's own effort to arm itself, to modernize, to fulfill its Article Three responsibilities.

Amb. McCarthy (11:57): You carried out the first post-World War II march through Europe called Operation Dragoon Ride, which tested the infrastructure all the way through. I mean, it was a remarkable march over 1,100 miles of the Army Second Cavalry Regiment and soldiers from the Third Squadron, Second Cavalry Regiment, from the Baltics back to Germany, I watched it leave Lithuania, I watched the press coverage. People waving flags, old and young. I mean it was both a public relations coup as well as a test of the system. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you decided to do this?

Gen. Hodges (12:36): The soldiers in the Third Squadron of the Second Cavalry Regiment deserve huge credit for this, because this was not something we had planned from the beginning. I remember we were actually sitting around talking about the transition from Third Squadron, leaving their rotational posts up in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and pulling to go home to Vilseck, Germany and they were going to be replaced by another squadron. And then somebody started talking about the rail movement they were going to come back on and then somebody said, "Well, why don't they drive back?" I mean they're in Strykers, a wheeled vehicle. I thought what a great idea, and a great idea, because number one, I've known my whole army life that, you don't really know if you have good maintenance on your equipment, unless you really press it. Usually, a long convoy will tell you whether or not you have good maintenance. So I saw this as a great test of our equipment readiness, which the Army has always emphasized. And then I remembered a conversation I had with General Sir Nick Carter, who at the time was the Chief of the General Staff, the head of the British Army, and he had been my boss in Afghanistan, and he told me about a movement they did with British troops that went through the UK, across the channel, down to Spain, and then across to Africa, on an exercise. And he said it was great because the soldiers were seen by the British public. And it was a good test, and I thought, what a great idea. So that was in my head. And then finally the whole purpose, remember make 30,000 look like 300,000, if you put equipment on a train, nobody sees it. So all that equipment would come back and nobody would ever know that the US Army had been there with our allies, to assure allies, but also to communicate to the Russians that the United States is here. We're gonna fulfill our commitment. Those combinations of maintenance and demonstration of capability, if you will, during daylight and connecting with the local public, was all a part of it. And then finally, I love putting responsibility on young people. And so you were gonna have this long movement being under the command of a captain, because each of the troops were moving on separate routes. The squadron commander could only be in one place. So you've got an officer that's 26 or 27 years old, typically, with a tough First Sergeant, who's probably about, you know, 36, and that's who was in charge of this whole movement. And they all knew that there were strategic implications. If there was a terrible accident, for example, somebody was hurt, civilians were hurt or vehicles were broken down up and down the highway, we would be achieving the opposite effect. The Russians would point, see, look, the Americans, you can't trust 'em they're not...

Amb. McCarthy (14:52): The equipment is no good...

Gen. Hodges (14:53): Right. And so there was a lot of risk there, but I was so confident in our junior officers and our sergeants. And I knew they were gonna have a blast. They were gonna have so much fun doing this. There was no way we could do it if you didn't support it, if any of the ambassadors didn't support it. And if the host nations didn't support it. That was an essential part of this. It was not just a convoy, it was a strategic movement. I was sure that we would be fine in terms of reception in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. But I had begun to hear that in the Czech Republic, there was gonna be a different kind of reception. I was really anxious about it. And I remember communicating with Ambassador Shapiro about this and he said, "No, don't worry, we're gonna be ready." By far, the biggest, warmest crowds on the entire route were in the Czech Republic. Tens of thousands of Czechs turned out. And in fact there was a gentleman, when I say an old man, that number has changed now that I'm 60 myself, but there was a gentleman old enough to have been a young boy during the Second World War, and he approached the regimental commander who was there. I mean, thousands of people swarming over the vehicles talking to soldiers. It was wonderful. And he approached the regimental commander with an old style baseball glove, you know, the kind with the big fat fingers, from the thirties. And he gave it to Colonel John Mayer, the regimental commander. He said, "Sir, this is for you." And John's like, "What are you talking about, this is an old baseball glove." He said, "Yes, an American soldier gave it to me when I was a boy. And I've been waiting 70 years to give it back." I mean, I get choked up about it even today. That was the kind of strategic effect that the United States can have.

Amb. McCarthy (16:26): Well, Steve, you also used effective public strategies in Poland and I mentioned your use of Twitter, which today you have 64,000 followers. I'm very impressed. So you were very active using this mechanism. Why was it effective in Poland in particular?

Amb. Mull (16:43): Social media was still in relatively early days when I got there in 2012, and from really my first week on the job, it was clear that this was a potentially really valuable tool. We had gone through a rough patch, I think, in US-Polish relations, the public favorability rating, according to the Pew poll, that it does every few years in Poland, had fallen from about 80% to 37%. Which was stunning, because from previous times in Poland, I always felt as if the United States was the most popular place around. So it was clear, I had a big public diplomacy job to do. I started up a Twitter account. It didn't come naturally to me, but I really liked it. It was so beneficial for so many reasons. First of all, it was a great way to polish my Polish, so to speak, because in diplomatic settings you can make a lot of mistakes and people are too polite to call you out on them. On Twitter, they're not polite. They say, "Hey, you know, you're stupid." You know, "You shouldn't say it that way. You should say it this way." So it became a really valuable tool to improve my colloquial Polish, but also on Twitter, I could be myself and I could take US policy and put it out in language that I knew Poles would appreciate and understand. And I could do it without having to run it back through Washington or any clearance process. And sure, I, you know, I made mistakes here or there, there are a couple of the tweets I think I wish I could have taken back, but in the main it proved an incredibly effective way to build support. And then, paired with really demonstrable efforts, to show that we're not just words, we're also about troops and equipment and being there, it was a really great combination that enabled us to reinforce each other. By the time I left in 2015, our favorability rating was back up around 80%.

Amb. McCarthy (18:25): Well, I wanted to turn now to the issue of missile defense. There is an agreement to put a US-run missile base in Poland as part of a broader missile defense system to defend Europe and the US from missile attacks from the Middle East. Steve, you helped negotiate the agreement with the Polish government. Can you tell us how you worked with the Department of Defense to get the agreement done?

Amb. Mull (18:47): There was a bit of a hiccup at the beginning of the Obama administration, when the Obama administration changed its philosophy of missile defense to move from ground-based interceptor missiles to a more mobile system known as Aegis Ashore. The problems were not so much negotiating this agreement with the Polish government, they understood it and signed onto it and there was broad support within the Obama administration, the State Department, Defense Department, on how to proceed with it, again it was a public diplomacy problem, where people thought that these missiles were not going to be as effective, that it somehow reflected a diminution of US support and commitment to the program. So we brought lots of visitors to the base where this facility is being built, devoted a lot of public attention, that the US was committed, that the system was going to be just as good.

Amb. McCarthy (19:36): And Ben, you've argued that more work needs to be done within NATO on air and missile defense vis-a-vis Russia, separate from the missile defense system geared and focused on the Middle East. Russia has missiles based in Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania. And these missiles can obviously reach into Poland and Northern Germany. Do you think Ben, that ground exercises should also be accompanied by exercises focused on air and missile defense and what would it take to get there?

Gen. Hodges (20:06): The environment and the capabilities have changed a lot over the last few years, finding ways to protect against drones as well as helicopters, rotary wing aircraft, a potential threat for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, because they could be isolated, the world's greatest navy could not move up the Baltic sea. So those are, those are the challenges Lithuania or Latvia or Estonia, even if the three of them combined, really could not afford, I think, buying large systems. We generally talk about professionally integrated air and missile defense. So you've got the short range, up to 5,000 meters, medium range, and then high altitude systems to address all the different types of threats. I think it's time to seriously consider converting the air policing mission that flies over the Baltic and Black Seas and convert that to air defense.

Amb. McCarthy (20:56): And several countries have been pushing that for a while.

Gen. Hodges (20:58): To get that done, that's gonna require a diplomatic effort because the French, among others, but the French are not in favor of giving SACEUR more authority, because air defense versus air policing requires a change in the rules of engagement. So it's a different mission profile, different weapons, but the key is the rules of engagement. And so inside the Alliance, so some good, hard diplomatic work would have to be done to convince all members of the Alliance that this was a necessary part of defense.

Amb. McCarthy (21:26): Well, this brings me to the issue of what was very much in the press in the last NATO summit, which is whether countries are contributing fully to NATO. The famous phrase of 2% was very much in the public eye and it, generally, it means the percentage of a country's gross domestic product devoted to defense. Steve, Poland has the ninth largest army in NATO and is committed to contributing more than 2%. Do you see any changes in this commitment going forward?

Amb. Mull (21:53): No, not at all. In fact, support across party lines in Poland during actually a very polarized and contentious time has actually been pretty consistent and pretty unanimous that Poland needs to be spending at least 2% of its GDP on its defence, if not more. Again, it's conditioned on Poland's history and I mentioned Poland disappeared from the map for 123 years, was subject to a pretty oppressive Soviet domination during the Cold War period.

Gen. Hodges (22:19): Starting at the Wales Summit, I think, back in 2014, when the Alliance committed to this 2% target of GDP, in Poland, Lithuania, Romania, so many countries are in fact either already there or moving in that direction. So I think that by the 2024, 10-year period, more than half of the nations in the Alliance will be at 2% or better. That's a good thing. And I'm not against 2% as a metric, but I think it's a terrible metric by itself. I mean, we have a couple of allies who are two-percenters, but yet they have decreasing capability.

Amb. McCarthy (22:53): Well, it's not the number, it's the capability as you say.

Gen. Hodges (22:55): And that, and that is the key. The focus on the 2%, as if 2% are club dues, really does not help inform people about the issue and the subject of burden sharing correctly. Every president, since the beginning of the Alliance has pressed allies to do more, that they should in fact do more. But even if European countries did not spend one Euro on defense or one dollar on defense, it is still in our interest in the United States, that Europe is secure and stable. It is time for a more sophisticated approach to what burden sharing and 2% actually mean. I think many Europeans would say, "Wait a minute, we've got thousands of German and French soldiers and soldiers from other countries that are in Mali, on UN missions and other missions in Africa, dealing with challenges there, that the United States does not have to send troops to."

Amb. McCarthy (23:42): Including fighting terrorism in those parts of the world.

Gen. Hodges (23:44): Exactly, burden sharing is more than just defense spending. I live in Frankfurt, Germany. I have been interacting with German politicians and media all the time. Unanimously, there's no politician, member of the Bundestag, that's going to spend a single Euro or vote for spending more money because it will look like he's responding to, or trying to please the American President. It's having the oppositie affect. So how do you incentivize Germany for example, or Belgium or Luxemburg or the Netherlands, to spend more? Or Norway. These are all underachieving in terms of defense investments. And I think things that the Alliance really needs include transportation. Right now, we have a real...

Amb. McCarthy (24:20): The infrastructure.

Gen. Hodges (24:21): Right. There's infrastructure, as well as capacity. There's not enough rail in Germany, the nation with the best rail system on the planet, there's not enough rail to move everything that needs to be moved. And so, why not, if it has demonstrable dual use capability for the military, for collective security, there's gotta be some formula that that should count towards this 2%. Or cyber. We have to fly in Germany. We have to use the port of Bremerhaven, well the cybersecurity for those places is not paid for by the Ministry of Defense. So the cyber that's used, the cyber protection, that ought to count towards 2% because we absolutely need it for our collective security. And then let me, if I may, make one final point, the access that our European allies give us, missile defense against the missiles coming from Iran, that can't be done from Texas. It's done in Poland and Romania. The access that Germany gives us at Rammstein Air Base, our air base at Incirlik, it's actually a Turkish air base, supports all kinds of operations in the Middle East. What the Navy is able to do in Italy. All of these things are important parts of burden sharing.

Amb. McCarthy (25:24): And allow us to project other places, which is somehow lost in the media coverage.

Gen. Hodges (25:28): Yeah, exactly.

Amb. McCarthy (25:30): I remember several years ago, you mentioned the following, which is, having some troops in Europe, besides the projection outside, has also allowed our troops to be retrained. Can you talk a little bit about this?

Gen. Hodges (25:42): General Milley, the Chief of Staff of the Army, has talked about great power competition. That's back. Russia and China, both are peer competitors. This is not a game, they are peer competitors, which means you can lose if you are not prepared, but the Army and the other services are all working very hard now to adapt to this environment. Longer range artillery, for example. You see the Navy's put their submarine chasers back on Iceland again. These are all things that you have to do to deal with this threat.

Amb. McCarthy (26:10): I wanted to turn to the issue of what has been transmitted.

Amb. Mull (26:14): This is a team effort, no one person, no matter how powerful or strong he or she is as a leader can do the job him or herself. You need a whole team engaged, you know, throughout the government involving every agency, involving every level. And so I think back to one of the things I'm proudest of, what we worked on together in Poland, as Poland decided to make its decision on what kind of air defense it wanted to have. It had narrowed its choice between a French system and US Patriots. And the French were putting a lot of pressure saying, "Hey, you know, you gotta take care of Europe. We've invested billions of euros. Now you need to give back and give business to European firms." And so that kind of put us on a back foot. And so talking it over with Ben, how could we get ahead on this, we came up with a plan where Ben brought about 16 batteries of Patriots and put them in a field outside of Poland, and in just a couple of weeks time, to show that if Poland were ever in danger, the full might of the United States was going to be there. It was a home run. It involved all the junior officers in our press operation, junior officers in our commercial operation, coordinating all of this with Raytheon, the manufacturers of the Patriot. It involved using sort of the economic people, our defense attache's office, we approached this as a team, not only within the embassy, but with Ben and his team. In the end, it was a huge success. And a couple of weeks later, Poland said, "Hey, we've decided we're going with Patriots. We're gonna, we know we can trust the United States." Because of this effort, because everyone on my team had played a role in producing the success and producing jobs for American workers and producing a defense choice for Poland, that would make them a better ally, more interoperable with us. This was a huge success. And everybody on my team got to taste that success and to see the outcome of their work. So I really think that's the best way to prepare future generations is you just need to involve people early on in their careers and make them co-owners of the success you produce.

Gen. Hodges (28:11): When he did say, "Hey look," and he explained this missile defense situation. I said, well, "Ambassador you know I'm not in the business side of weapons, sales," whatever I said, "But I'll tell you what I am in the readiness business. I think we could probably conduct a readiness test of one of the Patriot batteries. We'll give them a no notice test to drive all the way up from their base at Baumholder, up to wherever you tell 'em to go to in Poland." And so I think the air defense battalion had about three or four days notice that they were going have to drive a thousand kilometers, carrying missiles with them and everything, from Germany up into Poland. They ended up on the outskirts of Warsaw. And I think we had one maintenance issue on the entire trip up, again, under the leadership of a very young officer, achieving a strategic effect. They were sky high after that. I had the advantage, 1995 to 1997, I was the aide de camp for General George Joulwan, who was Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, as well as Commander of US European Command. And I watched him firsthand for the two years I was there, prioritize everything that he got from State Department, from any ambassador in any country, as well as working with the US Permanent Representative in Brussels, of course. It was obvious to me that the combatant commander, and then I heard him say, "Ambassador, my job is to support your mission, whatever your mission is." And so, and it's drilled into all of our heads that the ambassador is the senior American official in any country, the President's personal representative. So my policy at Wiesbaden when I was coming to US Army Europe was, "I say yes to anything any ambassador says, and I immediately stop anything any ambassador tells me to stop doing." It was pretty simple. And that was imbued throughout the US Army Europe staff. And that was how we approached it. And I found out that as long as I was accomplishing the objectives of any ambassador, supporting their efforts, I actually got more flexibility to do the things that I also needed to do there. We have a generation of officers that have grown up now, they see that this is the expectation, that this is how it's supposed to work. Jim Herman was the Consul General in Frankfurt, my last couple years there, another fantastic diplomat. He and I used to go around Germany and do public things at universities and with media. It was so much fun because it was a way to show, to Germans, the deference of the army to the diplomat. I mean, he was the lead and they watched him abuse me and, you know, poke fun at me. And we really had a lot of fun doing it. And it reinforces the notion of civilian control of the military.

Amb. McCarthy (30:43): Well, I want to thank you, during your time in Europe, you certainly did reach out to all the embassies to keep us engaged. And that flow of communication was very important. And those who worked under all of us watched it. Well, gentlemen, I want to thank you for a fantastic conversation, for contributing your knowledge, talking about your partnership in a key part of the world.

Amb. Mull (31:01): Thanks Deborah.

Gen. Hodges (31:03): Thank you very much.

Amb. McCarthy (31:11): This has been a new episode in the series The General and the Ambassador: a Conversation. Thank you for listening. The series is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy, with the generous support of the Una Chapman Cox Foundation. You can find the podcast on all major sites and on our website, generalambassadorpodcast.org. We welcome input and suggestions on the series. Please let us know your thoughts via general.ambassador.podcast@gmail.com.